Queen V's Last Stand
by FortressCaulfield
Summary: With Victoria's last days at Blackwell looming, she finds an unlikely friend (and maybe more) in former rival Rachel Amber as the two wind up taking on Arcadia Bay's last true villain!
1. Plan B

**A/N:** This fic is a follow-up to Here at the End of All Things. All you really need to know is that things here are different, but if you want to know why, and in what way, please consider reading the earlier work.

* * *

 **Chapter 1; Plan B**

You are the angel  
I am the asshole  
I am the one who caused a trillion tears  
And no-one wants to hear  
But I feel... bad

-Jill Sobule, Angel/Asshole

 **May 24th 2012**

She ran.

Designer shoes slapping in the mud, Victoria Chase fled more or less at random through the Blackwell campus. Overhead, the sky glowered and brooded. Thick, weighty clouds hung low. A chill, damp wind blew in random, chaotic gusts, rushing in no particular direction. Thunder rumbled overhead, loudly predicting the first big storm of the summer to anyone who would listen.

She wasn't crying. Not yet anyway, but the threat of it hung around her in the air. Just like the rain, it was coming.

She scrambled up the steps that led from the dormitories to the main quad and stopped. Looking back, she could see through the window into the hallway of the 3rd floor girl's dormitories.

Home.

Well, sort of. Home away from home, at least for the last two years. And now she knew, with a crushing, depressing certainty; They wouldn't miss her when she was gone.

She turned and ran into the courtyard. In front of her stood the statue of whatsisface, reaching one arm to the sky... wait. He had both hands on a cane, didn't he? Victoria pursed her lips as she struggled to remember. She walked by the damn thing every day but yet she couldn't recall it very clearly. Was this one of Nathan's ancestors?

Oh, God! _Nathan!_ How in the hell was she going to tell Nathan? Thunder rumbled across her features.

Whatever little Victoria recalled about the statue, she was, however, pretty sure it shouldn't be moving. She quickened her pace, and as she drew closer, could see that there was a figure climbing on its shoulders. The arm held aloft belonged to to the climber, not the statue.

In the stormy sky, Victoria saw a flicker of lightning jump within the clouds, silhouetting the climbing figure. "Whoever that is, they're going to get their dumb ass fried!" she said to herself, and ran forwards. This was the last thing she needed, of course, to be babysitting some suicidal nature lover, but contrary to popular belief, even Victoria Chase doesn't always get what she wants.

"Hey!" she cried out, "Hey, stupid, can't you see the storm?" The figure was on the smaller side. Lean. Probably a girl.

"Idiot, you're going to get electrocuted! Get your bony ass down off that statue!" She yelled, running now, to get closer. She saw long brown hair flapping in the breeze. Who had brown hair and was sad all the time? Stella? Alyssa maybe, but... Victoria smirked at the idea of Alyssa climbing anything. Whoever it was, the figure was ignoring her, reaching skyward.

There was another rumble of thunder. Victoria shouted, "Hear that? That means all freaks down off the statue. The last thing we need is a charred dumbfuck floating in the fountain before..."

She was interrupted by another flash of lightning. This one struck the ground, somewhere on the far side of the gymnasium. In the momentary light, she saw a glimpse of blue dancing in the wind by the figure's head. Thunder followed, immediate and breath-taking; so close she felt it in her bones.

"Rachel!" she gasped, "What the fuck are you doing?" She had reached the fountain, but Rachel was ignoring her, looking skyward, an arm extended, a vacant look in her eye.

"Rachel fucking Amber! I do not want to have to tell my therapist about your grisly death, alright? So you get your bony... Rachel! Can you even fucking hear me?"

Another flash, deep inside the clouds. Another all-too-close rumble of thunder. Rachel's gaze was still transfixed on the sky. She muttered weakly, "It's... calling me... "

"Goddammit!" spat Victoria, "Seriously Rachel, you're going to die!" She climbed onto the brick ledge of the fountain and tried to grab Rachel's leg. No good. Not close enough.

"Calling me home!" muttered Rachel, although she still didn't look down. Victoria couldn't be sure whether Rachel was even aware of her presence.

"You're buying me new shoes, you drugged-out lunatic!" cried Victoria, as she splashed through the fountain water and onto the base of the pedestal. She grabbed the leg of Rachel's jeans with both hands and tugged as hard as she could. What the hell was Rachel on? And where did she get it? The only local dealer she knew was Sheldon, and he barely managed to keep up a halfway decent weed supply, let alone anything harder.

"...I'm coming...", Rachel said to nobody and suddenly she was slipping. Victoria fell back off the pedestal and dragged Rachel with her. The two landed in a heap in the turgid waters of the fountain, smelling of rotten leaves and some soapy chemical. As her limbs flailed through the waters she kicked up a dozen coins that had lain on the bottom for who knows how long, now disturbed from their resting place. People's wishes. And she was spoiling them.

Good. Fuck 'em!

Just as the water closed over her head, Victoria saw the dazzling flash as a bolt of lightning struck the top of the statue, exactly where Rachel had been a split second earlier. It seared into her retina, a great wide swath of fire across her vision.

"And here we are in the fucking water", she thought, "I guess this is how it ends."

But it didn't. Some day, looking back, she would know exactly why the lightning didn't harm her, but in the moment, she supposed it must have had something to do with the construction of the statue itself. Maybe they grounded it somehow? Physics had never been her strong suit.

Rachel returned to her senses and sat up on her hands and knees, her wet face, blue feather stuck to her cheek, hovering only a few inches above Victoria's head as she held it out of the water. "Victoria? What the fuck?" Rachel asked in apparent surprise.

"You fucking tell _me_ what the fuck!" Victoria spat back, "Why was Rachel Amber trying to get herself electrocuted?"

Rachel sat back on her haunches in the water and looked around like she'd just woken up. She looked up at the clouds in a daze, shaking her head. With a rumble like an avalanche, the sky opened and the rains came, making a joyful, rattling din in the shallow fountain. She stood and offered a hand to Victoria, shouting, "We should get out of this rain! Let's get back to the dorms!" She pointed, but the dorms were gone, hidden behind a curtain of gray deluge.

Victoria slapped Rachel's hand aside and stood under her own power. "Fuck the dorms!" She shouted, "The pool is closer!" The wind sliced into her, seeming to cut right through her wet clothes and skin and suck the warmth right from her core.

"It'll be locked!" countered Rachel, wrapping her arms around herself. The wind was picking up and the chill of the downpour was unseasonably cold. The blue feather thrashed and jibed.

"Perks of being Vortex Club Treasurer!" countered a shivering Victoria, pulling a key ring from her pocket.

* * *

The acrid sting of chlorine never smelled so good. The humid air from the heated pool held a warmth to it that revitalized the two storm-tossed refugees, not unlike holding up a mug of warm tea just below the nose, but on a grander scale. The Otters' lair was renowned for its cozy, comfy towels, but Victoria still felt the need to stop at her locker and fetch her own. Larger, higher thread count and with a VMC monogram in pink in the corner, just in case anyone forgot who was boss.

Rachel's approach was to grab a half-dozen towels. One for her body, one for her hair, and two each for them to sit on. Victoria smirked internally. Towel slut.

Clothes hung to dry over the lifeguard chair, the pair sat down in their towels by the edge of the pool, dangling their feet in the warm water. Victoria stared at her companion's wavy reflection in the ripples. Rachel wore a concerned and confused expression and seemed to be staring blankly up at the skylights. Victoria cleared her throat and asked, "Okay, so now I have to know. Why were you up on that statue?"

Rachel shook her head, still staring at the weather. "I... can't. It's... it's impossible to explain."

"Well, until this rain breaks, we're not going anywhere, so you might as well try."

"You won't believe me."

"Because you know what it looked like?" Victoria said, her brows knitting into a frown, "It looked like you were trying to get yourself killed."

Rachel finally turned to face her. Her eyes played over Victoria's features as if she were only realizing now that she wasn't alone. Her mouth pulled into a smirk, "Victoria Chase... are you... concerned?"

"Don't change the subject."

Rachel blinked. Looking away, she adopted a more serious tone to reply, "I wasn't trying to kill myself. Okay? What about you? What were you doing out there?"

Victoria blanched. "I... wasn't..."

"You weren't?"

"I wasn't crying!"

Rachel raised an eyebrow, "I didn't say you were."

Victoria's face scrunched up into a ball of consternation.

"Victoria, what is it?"

 _'Mind your own business, bitch!'_ came to mind. _'Go cry by yourself, emo-slut! Some of us have better things to do!'_ followed shortly thereafter. But really, what the hell dignity did she even have left to salvage? She had been in a fountain a minute ago. In a fucking fountain! Common as a penny! While not 100 yards away, people she counted as friends sang mocking songs about her. Reluctantly, she offered, "It's ... next year."

"What's so bad about next year?" chirped Rachel brightly. "With Marisa graduating you'll probably be President of the Vortex Club, right? Isn't that what you wanted? You're going to be queen bee! Or, no, Queen V!"

Victoria's face quivered and the facade broke down. Now she was crying, and ugly crying at that, bow lips trembling in a full-on meltdown. She wondered if Rachel would take out her phone and film it. That was certainly something Victoria herself might have done in the past. She might have even gone so far as to register a domain name specially for it. _HotSnottyTears dot com_ or something similar. To her surprise, Rachel took her hand and seemed to wear a concerned, caring expression. But then again, this was Rachel Amber. She was good at seeming.

"What's the problem? It's everything you ever wanted! You'll have this place wrapped around your finger and you'll only be a Junior! People would kill for your spot!"

Victoria sobbed, "I don't have a spot! I'm leaving! I wanted to get serious about photography and so I looked into programs at other schools."

"You're transferring?"

"After the summer, I start at a place called Northfield Mt. Hermon. It's in Massachusetts."

"Whoa!"

"Yeah."

Rachel put her arm around Victoria's bare shoulders. "Well, what can I say, Vic? I'm impressed! Taking such a huge gamble to chase your dream! Pun intended. And relished. The place won't be the same without you."

Victoria bawled, "I know! It'll be a thousand times better!"

"What?"

"I'm going to have to start all over there! And Northfield is big, Rachel. Like, ten times as many students as Blackwell!"

"You're afraid you won't be Queen there," Rachel said, shaking the towel down out of her hair to use to dry Victoria's tears.

"I'm afraid I won't be anything there!" cried Victoria, breaking into heavy sobs. "I told Dana and Juliet I was going, and I overheard them in the bathroom making jokes. They were glad I was leaving! They were singing that stupid, fucking song!"

"Song?"

Victoria's eyes narrowed accusingly, "Oh, you know the fucking song! It came from the theater crowd. You probably helped write it! I bet you're singing in your head right now! Go on, get it the fuck out of your system already!"

Rachel looked up at the skylight and then down at the pool. Victoria wondered if the weird little truth bubble they'd been occupying had finally burst, but after a minute, she heard Rachel's soft, silky singing voice echo off the cavernous walls:

"Victoria Chase, Victoria Chase,  
Whenever she speaks, you want to spray her with mace!  
Poster child for resting bitch face!  
Victoria-toria Chase!"

"Yes, that's the fucking song alright!" sighed Victoria. Really, though, how mad could she be? It was all true. She deserved every word of it. Leave it to the theater geeks to make it rhyme!

"It's from 101 Dalm..."

"I know what it's fucking _from_ , Rachel!" spat Victoria, cutting her off. "I worked so hard to make a place for myself, to try and build something, and all I did was make everybody hate me!"

"But you can start again at this new school, right?" Rachel asked, reassuringly rubbing Victoria's back, "You'll be okay!"

"No, I can't! I don't want to just make another batch of people miserable, but I don't know how to do it any other way! I'm always going to just be the girl they sing villain songs about!"

"Vic, if that's really how you feel, you can make a change, you just..."

"You don't know what I'm up against, Rachel! My parents... we didn't have money when we came to Seattle. I can still remember a time when dessert was a once-a-week luxury and my mom drove this old beater that wouldn't start in the winter. They built the Chase Space out of nothing, and it only became what it is because they were relentless... savage in promoting it! Running down other galleries to anyone who would listen, sabotaging relationships between artists and other dealers, that kind of shit!"

"That sounds like a rough example to grow up with," nodded Rachel "Do you get a lot of pressure from them?"

"Not directly. It's not like Nathan's dad. But there's this... unspoken weight. Like, we made all this money so you could have all these clothes and all these cameras and go to this fancy school. Better prove you're worth it! I mean, they named me after _winning_ for Christ's sake!"

"I think I know what that's like, believe it or not. My mom has this effortless charisma. Everybody loves Sera! She doesn't even have to say anything and people just gravitate around her! I've always tried to be like that, but I can't. I have to fake it, even when I was a kid. And my Dad...", Rachel trailed off, gazing up at the rain beating on the skylights.

"When I was a kid, I didn't have play-dates like everybody else, I had networking opportunities. And now, I don't have friends! I have rivals and whatever you call people who are too chicken-shit to be rivals. I only know how to compete. I don't know how to connect with people. I'm not like you, Rachel!"

"Victoria, that's what I'm saying: I'm not like me!"

Whatever else was on her mind, Victoria's bully senses were finely honed. The sudden admission of weakness pulled her to attention. She asked, "What do you mean?"

Rachel waved her hands in the air in exasperation, "This is all a front, okay? The Rachel everybody loves; Rachel the angel, Rachel friend to all. It's not real! Everything about me is fake! My Dad..."

Victoria couldn't help but notice Rachel stalled out twice on the same subject. Ordinarily, she'd store that nugget away for potential future exploit; _Rachel Amber, weaknesses: Daddy Issues_. But what was the point in fighting her now? Rachel was breaking down in front of her and Victoria herself was leaving. Whatever beef was between them was over, but Victoria still couldn't quite turn off the part of her brain that wanted to figure out if that meant she'd won. She tried to ignore it.

"He's a lawyer, right?" she asked, "District Attorney?"

"It's as much a political position as it is a legal one. He's got a different face for everybody he knows and he's always worried about appearances. And I love him, but I don't love this feeling that I'm turning into him. He knows how to take the mask off, at least around me and Mom, but I don't anymore! I'm becoming this politician. I know exactly what everybody wants to hear and I can't stop myself from saying it. That's why I'm not with Chloe any more! That's why I was running outside in a storm! That's...", she gestured up at the grey sky emptying its fury outside the skylight, "That's just fucking _why_ , okay?"

"Okay, but I heard _you_ broke up with _her._ We all thought you were finally growing out of your girl on girl phase."

Rachel ignored the dig, shaking her head and sighing wistfully, "Chloe is a total stud. Adventurous, confident... I defy any girl who's anywhere north of a Kinsey zero to not fall in love with Chloe. That long, lean body, that razor sharp wit, that relentless realness! I feel like in some ways she's the only person here who knew the real me."

"So what was the problem? And why were you out there moping about a break-up that was your idea?"

"... she's in love with someone else. She doesn't even know it yet, but… trust me. She is." Rachel admitted after a long pause. An arc of lightning flashed outside the skylight, its reflection torn into a thousand dancing shards by the ripples of the pool's surface.

Victoria visibly boggled. What kind of goddess... what kind of paragon could turn anybody's head away from little miss perfect? Dating Rachel Amber was the kind of thing you put on your college application, not the kind of thing you walk away from! The status metrics of it had never made any sense to Victoria. Rachel Amber and Chloe Price. Why? How? Was Rachel not aware of just how thoroughly she was socially slumming it? Did she just not care, or was that part of the appeal? How was one to operate in a world where the most popular girl in school chose for her arm candy some lanky nerd girl instead of the likes of Zachary and/or Logan? Were decorative sides of beef out? Was being bi the new hotness? And after all that, it had been Chloe that moved on first. It defied all possible calculation! She had to ask, "Anybody I know?"

Rachel shook her head, blue feather dancing, "No. She lives in Seattle, but she and Chloe talk all the time and visit each other every few months. You'd like her, though. She's a photographer."

Victoria wasn't sure about that. Just the notion of another skilled photographer on campus made her hackles rise. It was bad enough having to compete with just Evan! She was going to have to get over that in a hurry when she transferred.

A sudden rumble of thunder shook the walls and rattled the skylights. The two girls gasped and reflexively huddled together, holding each other by the arms. Victoria caught a whiff of jasmine from Rachel's hair. Given what their relationship had been previously, it seemed unlikely, but maybe she could yet leave Blackwell behind with at least one actual friend.

"Well, for what it's worth, I want to know the real you," she muttered to the ground.

"Well, I want to know the real you too, Victoria."

"I think you already do, Rachel. I think Queen V _is_ the real me. I think that... exaggerated bitch... that fucking cartoon villain who tried to steal your part in the Tempest... that's me. That's Victoria fucking Chase. That's all I'm ever going to get to be!"

"I don't believe that," countered Rachel, shaking her head, "I think the way you want to change... the person you want to become. That's the real you and I think she's gonna be pretty cool!"

Victoria turned her red eyes and stared at Rachel's face. Her perfect, delicate, inscrutable face; hypnotic and unknowable, like staring into a fire. "Is that you being real? Or are you just being the politician?"

Rachel pondered the question, "I don't know. I can't even fucking tell any more! But I want it to be true!"

"I'm so sorry about that, by the way! The Tempest, I mean. Like, legit ashamed. That one keeps me up at night some times. Why are you even talking to me? I'm _horrible!_ " Victoria wailed, burying her head in her hands.

Rachel's lip quivered. Her eyes began to cloud over and her voice choked as she protested, "Maybe I'm horrible too, Vic. Maybe I'm turning into my Dad and I don't know how to stop! Maybe that's why I had to leave Chloe, because she's like some sort of truth elemental and being around her makes me realize what a lying, manipulative piece of shit I really am!"

"No, I'm a piece of shit! Everybody hates me and they're 100% right to!"

"We are both pieces of shit!"

"We are!"

"We suck!"

The rain thrashed outside the skylights as Victoria Chase and Rachel Amber sat crying in each others' arms, weeping bitter, rueful tears of self-recrimination. Heaving, choking sobs echoed through the empty chamber, underscored occasionally by rumbling thunder. _HotSnottyTears dot com_ would have had a field day. Slowly, both the weather and the two girls eased into calm as an awkward silence descended.

Rachel spoke first, sniffling quietly into Victoria's neck, "You could change. I could help you. I want to help you!"

Victoria retreated to arms' length and gave her a confused look.

Rachel continued, "How about this? I'll help you learn to be better with people, and you... you help me keep it real."

"You want my help?" Victoria exclaimed, struggling to process the concept. Perfection incarnate required assistance? It was the sort of sentence you'd use to make a robot's head explode.

"No, but I need it. You've got a finely honed bullshit detector and you're the only one here who sees through me. I could use someone in my life who calls me on it. Slap the fake out of me."

Victoria grinned, "Do I really get to slap you?"

"Only if I'm naughty", sung Rachel's honeyed voice, playfully. Her eyes shot a sultry glance. It was exactly flirtatious enough that Victoria couldn't tell if she was serious. Perfectly pitched. Probably practiced that shit in the mirror.

"Okay, so what's step one?"

"Step one...", started Rachel, reaching for Victoria's face with deliberate slowness, "...is relax. You carry all your tension right here. Everybody can see it." Victoria jumped slightly as Rachel's finger touched her lips. She traced her way around the edges, smoothing. "You've got like this perma-purse thing going on...", she muttered, adding, "Yeah, that's it exactly!" as Victoria's face tensed up. Rachel leaned in, staring at Victoria's mouth. She felt her face flush. "Relaaaaaaax, Victoria. It's okay if everything doesn't go according to plan. Maybe there doesn't even need to be a plan. Here, stand up."

Victoria obliged and Rachel took her hands and shook her arms out. "You don't always need to be tensed up for a fight. Learn to relax a little and you'll be ready for anything!"

"That sounds like hippie horse shit, but I'll try," mumbled Victoria. She shook her head to the side and tried to unpurse her lips. Rachel ducked behind her and rubbed her neck and shoulders.

After a minute, she asked, "Relaxed yet?"

"I guess."

"Ready for anything?"

"Sure," she sighed, and then added hastily, "If you kiss me, I will fucking punch you."

"Okay then. Plan B!" replied Rachel.

Plan B, as it turned out, was pushing Victoria into the pool. On her way down, she wondered what it meant that she wasn't even really mad. Sure, she was vaguely annoyed she'd have to dry off, again, this time using the communal towels, but the usual venom was conspicuous by its absence. Ordinarily she'd have a revenge plan crafted before she even hit the water. Maybe teach Rachel why you do not hand a bully a wet towel. As of right now, however, her mind was occupied with more pressing concerns. Namely, could she really change? Could she make at least some modicum of amends in the time she had left? Could Rachel help her? Could she help Rachel?

And most importantly; what in the hell, exactly, had been Plan A?


	2. Amends

**A/N:** This fic is a follow-up to Here at the End of All Things. All you really need to know is that things here are different, but if you want to know why, and in what way, please consider reading the earlier work.

* * *

 **Chapter 2: Amends**

So there it is  
All the truth is on the table  
Nothing to forgive  
It's okay to start again

-Jellyfish, Bye Bye Bye

 **May 25th, 2012**

" _ **Agent Cerulean! Princess Fuchsia! Doctor Viridian!**_ " boomed a deep, affected voice as stylized cartoon action unfolded in stark blacks and vivid neons on the Prescott Dormitory lounge TV, "When **_war_** erupts between **_light_** and **_shadow_** , three unlikely heroines must stand together to face..."

" _ **The Perils of Prismaticaaaaa!**_ " sang a sea of voices in unison, followed promptly by a collective fit of giggling. Another Friday night. Another gathering of the Sci-fi Club.

"Sweet intro!" nodded Warren, "Don't know why I never got into this as a kid."

He was seated on the floor, along with Stella, leaving the sofa for Alyssa and Brooke. An assortment of snacks lay strewn across the coffee table before them.

Brooke poked Warren in the back of the head, "Oh, let me guess. Because it was a _girl's_ cartoon?"

"Look!" exclaimed Stella, pointing the screen, "Agent Cerulean rides a laser-cycle and fights evil with dual photon revolvers. What's girly about that?"

"Well, the toys did have brushable hair. That kind of puts it in the girl cartoon category," offered Alyssa.

"If brushable hair on toys is wrong, I don't want to be right!" said the figure in the doorway. The collective of faces turned to find Victoria Chase standing framed in the light from the hall, one hand behind her back.

"You can't kick us out!" blurted Alyssa, defensively, "We signed out the room! Sci-fi club!" She pointed to the small, hand-written sign taped to the door.

"I know," nodded Victoria. On the TV, Princess Fuchsia majestically crested a sunrise on her aurora-board, burgundy hair billowing in the breeze. Deadly pink ultra-lightning crackled around her. The image reminded Victoria of Rachel up on the statue. To her surprise, that thought pulled her little bow lips into an easy smile.

"So why'd you come?" asked Brooke.

"Because I've always wanted to!" Victoria replied, unveiling from behind her back an action figure that produced a soft blue glow in the darkened room. Luxurious, brushable, midnight blue hair cascaded down its back. In its plastic hands hands, it kung-fu gripped a tiny pair of photon revolvers.

"So you got an SH Figuarts Agent Cerulean at the toy store in a moment of nostalgia and now you're here to flex your newfound geek cred? Tell us what we've been doing wrong?" scoffed Brooke, crossing her arms and scowling.

"Hang on, wait a minute... that's not Figuarts Cerulean," muttered Stella, scootching forward on her knees to get a better view, "That's... that's the third party knock-off, right? The R-Max BFF Blueberry with the extra paint apps?"

"And they fixed the knee ratchets!" added Victoria, bending the figure's knee and eliciting a deliciously firm clicking noise. Stella offered an awed ooo. Brooke pulled her mouth tight in an expression of reluctant appreciation.

Alyssa and Warren exchanged quizzical looks. Stella gestured at the rare figure and added, "Guys, this would take three hours of digging for a faker to even KNOW about, not to mention..."

"All the sellers are in China," nodded Victoria.

Brooke nodded her assent and added, "She would have had to buy this at least a month ago. Okay, I'm impressed, Victoria! Either you're a legit geek, or you're seriously dedicated to punking us."

Victoria looked over the quartet of faces, lit up in televised green from the light of Dr. Viridian's emerald flame-thrower. Losers. Dorks. One fatty, two nerds and a boy with so little game he had three girls to himself for an entire evening and couldn't get anywhere. There was a time she would have pounced, loosed her claws. Kicked them all out of the TV room just because she could. And why? What for? Points in some sort of arbitrary status war that wouldn't matter any more in a week when she left Blackwell behind forever. If it had ever even mattered at all. If it had ever existed anywhere but in her own head. She didn't beat these kids at the game. They had actively decided to not play. She replied, "I'm legit. I just... I never had the balls to show it before."

"So what changed?" asked Alyssa, skeptically.

"Well... about that..."

* * *

"So how'd it go?"

"Pretty well," Victoria replied. They had reconvened in Victoria's room. Rachel made herself at home on the sofa, feet up and strappy white sandals discarded on the floor. Victoria envied her ability to get so comfortable so quickly. It gave her an air of unassailable confidence. In contrast, whenever Victoria went into a new person's room for the first time she felt as if there was a rule set she needed to read. Some form that needed to be filled out in triplicate before sitting on their furniture, let alone lounging like Rachel was doing. To complete the look, Rachel wore perfectly fit skinny jeans and a white t-shirt with a silver shell print and the neck torn exactly far enough to allow just one shoulder to poke out in an impression of flawless, effortless chic. Victoria felt overdressed by comparison in her white silk button-down sleeveless blouse and metallic powder-blue skirt with grey leggings.

Victoria continued, "I made some amends and I think they were actually a little sad to learn I was leaving, although there was a moment I thought Brooke might physically attack me. We were arguing ships, and she's hardcore ViriLean even though CeruChsia is clearly the OTP! It was super refreshing to be able to geek out about Prismatica and not face any... yes, that. That right there. What you're doing with your face. Judgement."

"Sorry, sorry," laughed Rachel, "No, you know what? Not sorry. It's cool you're letting your inner geek out to play, but if you're going to do that, you've got to own it. Don't get all embarrassed the first time some bitch shits in your proverbial cheerios just because she doesn't get it. That's going to happen."

Victoria nodded and looked down at the figure in her hands, "Was that me all this time? Was I the cheerio shitter?"

Rachel scrunched her face up. Victoria demanded, "Just say it."

"Yeah, you kind of were."

"I think I liked you better when you lied all the time."

"No you didn't. You hated me. And I wasn't thrilled with me, either."

"Alright, then, fine. Perils of Prismatica is fucking amazing, Agent Cerulean is my role-model, and I don't give a fuck what you think!"

"But you care what Taylor and Courtney think, right? Otherwise you wouldn't have asked me to keep them busy today. Oh, and thanks for that, by the way. Now I'm invited to another one of Taylor's insipid sleepovers."

"Oh, come on! Taylor's not that bad. And anyway, that was for the others. I didn't want those two shitting in the sci-fi club's cheerios," Victoria replied. She opened her desk drawer to return the figure to its hiding place, but at the last moment, changed her mind. Instead, she placed it in plain sight, next to her laptop. She fixed the legs into a lunging action pose and lifted the arms to aim both photon revolvers at some unseen antagonist. Fuck yeah!

"Was that it? Or was it because you haven't told them you're leaving yet?"

"I'll get there. Courtney will be fine, but Taylor... She's like a puppy sometimes, you know? But that's not who I'm really dreading telling."

The pair shared a somber expression. Rachel nodded, "Nathan. You know what I'm going to say, right?"

Victoria rolled her eyes, "No time like the present, or some bullshit to that effect?"

"It'll be okay. I'll hold your hand if your nervous," grinned Rachel.

The prospect of holding Rachel's hand actually made Victoria more nervous, not less. She found herself locked up processing that idea until Rachel laughed and added, "Metaphorically, I mean. Come on, there's only half an hour visitation left. Let's do this!"

* * *

"How _do_ they manage to get _everything_ to smell like pee?"

Rachel and Victoria exchanged glances for courage before plunging further into the boy's dormitory. Not exactly enemy territory, but definitely alien. For two girls with no brothers, it was a foreign, unknowable world of inexplicable stains and disarray, and it was not outside the realm of possibility that they might need a breathing apparatus. As they neared Nathan's room they passed Hayden in a strong fog of his own particular usual aroma.

"You're here to see Nathan?" he asked of the two girls in passing. Without waiting for an answer, he added, "I don't think he feels like talking. My boy got rrrreeekt!" before disappearing into his room.

Victoria knocked on the dorm room door, calling, "Nathan?"

"FUCK OFF!" came a choking voice from inside.

Rachel noticed the white board. It usually read, ' _The Prescotts Rule_ ' but someone had smeared their hand roughly through it, erasing most of it, leaving traces of black dry erase dust on the wall beside. She called out, "Nathan, it's Rachel and Victoria!"

After a lengthy pause, Nathan threw the door open, but he didn't look at or address them. He stomped back away from the door and flung himself down on the sofa. He didn't seem to land exactly as he expected, and almost slipped off the slick leather thing onto the floor. The open door and the silence seemed to say to them, ' _you can come in if you want, but on your own head be it!_ '

The girls cautiously made their way inside. Typically, Nathan's room was well-ordered and tidy, but now, clothes, photos and books lay tossed around like a shipwreck. Among the chaos lay an empty pill bottle and the remains of what appeared to be medical paperwork, torn to shreds. Nathan's eyes were red and puffy and he wore a miserable grimace. Victoria lowered herself gingerly onto the sofa next to him.

"Nathan, do you want to tell me what's wrong? I'm here if you do."

"It's Sam!" he spat between clenched teeth. "She's not coming back next year. She says it's something about her scholarship but I know it's because of me!" He buried his face in his hands and tried to hide it, but it was obvious to the girls he was crying from his jerky, strained breathing.

Rachel picked up the empty pill bottle and read the label, "Nathan, how many of these have you taken?"

Nathan didn't seem to have heard her. His response came rapid-fire, "I don't know what I'm going to do next year! Right back to being a loser with no girlfriend! Thank God you're still here, Victoria! I don't know how I'm going to get through the summer without you! It's going to be so hard!" He tried to turn toward Victoria but could only manage to slump against her. His arms gestured through the air at nothing. His words were slurring.

Rachel and Victoria exchanged worried looks. The former pulled her phone from her pocket and began a quick search for the drug name on the pill bottle.

"Nathan! Nathan!" Victoria called. She held him by one shoulder to help him balance on his seat and slapped him gently on the cheek with his other hand, "Nathan, stay with me! You were telling me about Sam! What about Sam?"

Nathan's response contained the phrases, "Sam's leaving", "stupid bitch", "I think I love her", "scholarship bullshit" and "don't deserve her" but not in any particular coherent order, or even one at a time. Victoria had to use both hands to keep Nathan from flopping face first off the sofa.

"Well, the good news is, he's not going to OD on that stuff. We don't need to call an ambulance," sighed Rachel, tossing the pill bottle in the trash. "He's just going to sleep for a really long time, and he might choke on his own vomit if he throws up."

Victoria squirmed out from underneath the rapidly collapsing Nathan and laid him as gently as she could on his side on the sofa. She tucked the sofa cushions under his head and behind him to make sure he couldn't roll onto his back. Rachel asked, "Should we call the infirmary?"

Seated on her hip on the floor next to the sofa, Victoria shook her head, "No, then his dad will find out. That'll be the last thing he needs. Hand me a blanket and help get his shoes off?"

Rachel obliged, and they soon had Nathan tucked in on the sofa. Victoria continued, "I'll stay and watch him. Make sure he doesn't do the... vomit... choking thing."

Rachel plopped down onto the bed, "Wow, Vic. I don't know how you kept your cool through all that. I guess the Vortex Club treasurer winds up holding a lot of pony tails above a lot of toilets huh?"

Victoria sighed by way of acknowledgement and asked, "What are you doing?"

"I'm staying with you."

"No, no. I've got this. It's Friday night. At least one of us should have a social life."

"Well, maybe the only person I really want to hang out with right now is in this room."

Victoria made a show of rolling her eyes, but in truth, Rachel's statement gave her a sense of relief. Not only did it mean she wouldn't have to keep vigil til morning by herself, but... actually she wasn't sure what the second thing was. But she felt it very strongly. Having Rachel around was better than not having Rachel around. She was surprised how certain that suddenly seemed.

As she pondered, Rachel gathered up the torn paperwork and tried to make sense of it. "These look like notes from a therapist. Was he seeing someone?"

Victoria nodded, "Sam got him to go. I'd been suggesting it for years. I keep trying to tell him there's no shame in it. I have a therapist."

"So do I," admitted Rachel.

"But that's not what his dad tells him."

"Well, it looks like he's not seeing them any more," Rachel shrugged, tossing the ripped papers into the trash. It's crazy, right? I mean, Nathan's very-obviously needed therapy as long as I've known him."

Victoria pondered. As close as she, herself, was with Nathan, Rachel had known him longer. Or at least, she seemed to. She remembered the start of her freshman year, when the two of them had seemed like old friends. Although, Rachel could affect that with just about anybody. If D.B. Cooper suddenly surfaced again, the least surprising thing about it would be when he posted a chummy selfie with Rachel Amber. "And how long was that?" Victoria asked.

"We met way back when my family moved here. 2005. His dad had this big barbecue to welcome the new D.A. and he had all his judge and cop and local government friends there. Looking back, I think it was more of a show of strength, so my dad would know who not to fuck with."

"Sounds like vintage Sean Prescott."

"We were the only two kids there. Kristine was off at some party. I can still remember the _way_ Mr. Prescott introduced us. I felt like I was being... offered to Nathan."

"What, like... for... for sex?"

"Vic, do the math! We were ten! No, it was somehow even creepier than that. It sort of felt like, 'Here, Nathan, a girl for you to practice being normal on! Don't pass up this chance to impress me!' Like I was a... test or something. We were fucking _**ten!**_ "

"His dad is so hard on him it makes me furious! He just doesn't get it! Nathan _wants_ to fit it! He _wants_ to have friends! He just doesn't know how, and yelling at him to do it isn't going show him!"

"He's been getting better! Ever since Drew North graduated it seems like he's had a lot more guy friends, I guess what happened is he basically bought Hayden off with weed, and Hayden's kind of a trend-setter with the guys, so that got him an in with the like of Zachary and/or Logan, and that got him enough votes for Vortex membership... and... wait... that was all you, wasn't it?"

Victoria dipped her head in acknowledgement, "It was me. You didn't think Nathan thought of that himself, did you? The most complex social maneuver boys our age are capable of is a fucking shoulder bump."

"Vic... do you think that was... helpful? I mean, I get what you were going for, but it just kinda does an end run around the real problem, you know?"

"I don't... I don't even know any more... ugh!" Victoria stood and crossed to the window. It was starting to get dark outside. She stared her ghostly reflection in the eyes. "Am I just going to have to get used to the idea that Rachel Amber is right about fucking everything?"

Walking up from behind, Rachel appeared behind her in the reflection. The orange glow of the sunset lit up her eyes, like some sort of fire spirit. She stood on her tip toes and wrapped her arms around Victoria's shoulders, hugging her from behind. "You were trying to help. No judgement. I can see why you don't want to tell him you're leaving," she said, giving a reassuring squeeze. Victoria stared at their faces in the reflection. She didn't have the procedurals loaded for this. Her world was fist bumps and air kisses, not hugs. She felt like Rachel could hold her like this for a thousand years and she wouldn't know how to escape.

Soon, Rachel released her. Breaking into a grin, she added, "And also... yes."

Victoria found herself equally unsure what to do now that the hug was over. How had she been so paralyzed by something so simple? Doing her best to shake it off, she turned and walked back to sit on the arm of the sofa next to Nathan's head. Still breathing. So far, so good! She fished for further conversation, "So, 2005 you said? You've been stuck in this hick town for 7 years?"

Rachel retreated to Nathan's bed and sat. Kicking off her sandals, she swung her feet up and leaned back against the wall. "Seven years in about a month, yes," she nodded.

"How have you not gone crazy? I've only been here for two years and I'm already climbing the walls in this cultural fucking wasteland. Thank God for summers back in Seattle!"

"Summers are the worst. I'm still stuck here and almost all the rest of you are gone. At least last year I had Chloe. Ha! You want to know a secret?"

Outside the was a rumbling clatter as a rabble of guys passed by on their way out to the dining hall. The dinner-time avalanche. Rachel and Victoria tensed up. Neither of them wanted to be discovered and have to listen to endless rumors about the two girls who spent the night in Nathan's room. Although, Victoria reflected, that would fix a few of Nathan's social problems. Wouldn't be so great for herself or Rachel though.

When things went quiet again, Victoria leaned forward and whispered, "You know that I do."

"I asked Chloe to run away with me. Back in the spring. She's got her truck, we could go down to L.A., get a place. I was convinced I could make it as a model."

"That's a difficult life, Rachel. Making it is as much about luck and hard work as talent and beauty."

"Well, good to know you think I have talent and beauty, I suppose," replied Rachel, with a sly grin.

Victoria was not in the mood for grinning, "My folks know a few models through the gallery. Mostly art and photo models, but a few of them do runway as well. It's not always... sunshine and roses, you know?"

"I know."

"No, I mean..." Victoria suddenly crossed the room, grabbed Rachel's hand and squeezed it. "One girl told me about this photographer that drugged her... and... well, the guy's in jail now. But, if things had gone even a little differently, he could be out and she could be dead. If you're going to seriously make a go of that life, just... you just be careful!"

Rachel appeared to blanch and blink at the Victoria's sudden contact and earnest. "Well, it doesn't matter anyway," she demurred, "My big rebel heroine wouldn't carry me away. My heinous exile in Arcadia Bay continues unabated!"

Having released Rachel's hand, Victoria now found herself standing, uncertain where to go. Rachel scooted over on the bed to make room for her, and without thinking, Victoria found herself settling down in the empty space. She asked, "Chloe wouldn't go? That surprises me. I would have expected her to follow you to the ends of the earth."

Rachel stared at the ceiling, saying wistfully, "You and I... we grew up in cities. Big cities where there's more shows than you can ever see and more events than you can ever go to! Then we come here and it's just this little fishing town with an art school plopped in it. And I love Blackwell but there's virtually nothing going on outside of it. And the staff wonders why so many kids want to get drunk or high! But Chloe lived her whole life here. All her best memories are here. Her folks are here and they're all great together. If it wasn't for her best friend leaving I'm not sure she'd have even realized there's life outside of Arcadia Bay. It just occurred to me if I'd said Seattle instead of L.A. I might have been able to convince her..."

"Chloe wasn't at sci-fi club. They've said she's been kind of withdrawn since..."

"Since I dumped her," Rachel sighed. She looked dejected.

Victoria scrambled for words to reassure her, "It sounds like if you wanted... she'd take you back. You said she's in love with some other girl but doesn't know it yet. Maybe she'll never know! So I mean... you know... If you wanted... "

Rachel shook her head, "Did you know we met backstage at the Tempest? I mean, we knew _of_ each other, but that was when we first really connected. She was helping Steph and she had on this shirt from the Firewalk show the night before. She'd snuck out to go. I wanted to, but I chickened out and then I had to hear all about it from Chloe. I damn near missed a couple cues listening to her. How I wished I'd gone! I _still_ wish I'd gone!"

"Chloe Price broke curfew to go to a show?"

"Told you she was a stud. Don't let the good grades and the role-playing games fool you. Three weeks later, I'm up late studying and there's a tap at my window. It's Chloe. She's snuck out again and she wants me to come and go see Coven with her. She even brought a rope, just in case, if you can believe it. That show was amazing, thrashing away to _Faerie Fucking Princess_... thinking we were so slick sneaking watery beers in solo cups. We were giving each other sharpee tattoos and I look down and she's written her own name in a heart on my wrist. I didn't wash that off for like a week. Put plastic wrap over it when I showered."

Victoria looked over at the nightstand, "I wonder if Nathan has any anti-nausea meds in here?"

"Oh, ha ha!" Rachel retorted sarcastically. "But...anyway, no. Chloe may not have figured it out yet, but she will. If you saw her and this other girl together you'd know. It's only a matter of time. I won't be anybody's silver medal!"

"Good!" Victoria replied, and then immediately felt the need to retract it. She hastily covered, "I mean... it's good... that you value yourself enough to say that. Um, you know Steph has a crush on you."

" _Dogs_ know Steph has a crush on me. Aw, poor Steph!"

"Not feeling it?"

"Steph's cute but she's... I don't know. Too girly. Too small. There's this part of me that only wants to kiss _up_ , you know?" Rachel said, holding her hand out level a few inches above her own head. "I think what worked for me with Chloe is that she's bigger than me, and she's got her boyish qualities."

Victoria looked at her reflection in the dark window. Her boyish haircut and her tall frame. For a moment, her face went very red as she pondered exactly what Rachel was implying.

Fortunately, Rachel was distracted, soliloquizing to the far corner of the room, "It just hurts, you know? Finally realizing she didn't really want me. That's not how it's supposed to happen. I'll bet that sort of thing never happened to my mom."

"You're not your mom, Rachel. Or your dad. And you don't have to be. No more than Nathan has to be _his_ dad."

"I could say the same to you, Victoria."

Victoria huffed. "I'm working on it."

* * *

 **May 26th, 2012**

The evening passed on into twilight. The noises of the dorm, as loud and alien to them as the gorilla cage at the zoo, gradually fell into quiet. They locked Nathan's door and whispered together until well past midnight, speaking of hushed secrets no other soul would ever hear. They took turns making a furtive dash to squeamishly use the restrooms and dart back. They took turns napping. The first came by accident, as Rachel fell asleep on Victoria's shoulder and she once again found herself paralyzed, not comfortable where she was, but, somehow, unwilling to get away. When Rachel woke, she talked Victoria into lying down with her head in her lap, and just as Victoria thought to herself that it was the most awkward thing imaginable, she drifted off into a deep and content slumber.

Rachel woke her as the sun just barely started to climb its way to the horizon. Nathan had thrown up twice, on the floor, rather than in his own esophagus, thanks to their efforts, but was otherwise okay. He seemed to be slowly coming out from under the effects of what he had taken, occasionally opening his eyes or muttering to himself before drifting off again. Rachel and Victoria took that moment to make their escape, creeping through the halls barefoot, shoes in hand.

As they tip-toed through the early morning dew, Victoria looked down at her wrinkled silk. "I'd better sneak back and shower and change before Courtney notices I'm wearing the same thing as yesterday. I swear, she keeps a goddamn spreadsheet!"

"Better idea!" countered Rachel, "Let's walk to my place. It's not super far. By now they already know you didn't sleep in your dorm, right? Might as well roll with it. We can tell my folks I spent the night in your room and you can tell everybody else you slept over in mine. I could loan you some clothes for the return trip."

Victoria shrugged in assent. As they walked, Rachel seized Victoria's arm and laughed, "Yes! That red flannel Steph gave me and my black shredded jeans. Mmmm! We'll make a thrasher out of you yet, Vic!"

Victoria sneered reflexively at the idea of being dressed up in some sort of proto-Rachel faux punk cosplay, but before she could comment, they both went quiet at the sound of sniffling from behind a nearby tree.

On the other side, they found Samantha Myers, seated with her back against the trunk, sporting a pink hoodie over grey flannel pajamas. Red eyes and damp cheeks betrayed her state of mind. She gathered up a few used tissues and crammed them in her pockets when she saw she was no longer alone. "Rachel! Victoria! I... I woke up early and couldn't sleep and I came out here to... to..." she chirped in a strained version of her tiny voice, trailing off when she couldn't quite complete her excuse.

"Sam, it's okay," offered Rachel, squatted next to her and placing a hand on Sam's forearm, "We heard from Nathan. He said you're not coming back next year?"

"It's that horrible Mr. Prescott!" Sam peeped and then immediately recanted, "I'm sorry, that's awful of me. But it's true! He found out I got Nathan to go to therapy and he's going to cancel my scholarship! Now I have to go back to fucking Wisconsin! How many sensitive photographer boys do you think I'm going to meet there?"

Rachel and Victoria exchanged glances. Victoria's face scrunched up into an angry pout. Rachel wore a more sympathetic visage as she tried to comfort Sam.

Sam continued, "Being with Nathan... it's never been easy. But it makes me really happy, you know?"

"I know," Rachel lied.

"Most people here are so shallow, so one dimensional, you know?" Sam sniffled, her eyes flicking for just a moment to Victoria, who was already too angry to notice, "But Nathan? He's got depth. People say he's got issues. That he's broken! But you know what? That's what real people are like! He tries so hard to hide it from everybody, because his dad wants him to be this... this perfect boring normie! But it's like the real Nathan is just for me. Because I'm broken too! And when we're together, it's like it's okay, you know? It's okay to be broken!"

Rachel nodded, "It _is_ okay, Sam. I'm glad you two have that kind of honesty together."

She stood, helping Sam up to her feet, "Do you know what it's like, Rachel? To find one person you can just be real with?"

"Maybe..." This time, it was Rachel's turn to shoot a glance over at Victoria, who had started pacing. Her back was turned. Rachel continued, "Sam, why don't you go get yourself cleaned up and get some breakfast? Might as well enjoy those famous Blackwell lukewarm, flavorless scrambled eggs while you still can!"

Sam laughed sardonically in spite of herself. "Yeah. Thanks, Rachel! Thanks for listening," she offered, and after a quick hug, scurried away back to the dorms.

Victoria shook her head. When Sam was out of earshot, she spat, "Sean Fucking Prescott. Why am I not surprised?"

"Well, there's one thing from Arcadia Bay you won't miss. You can put that in the plus column, I guess," Rachel shrugged.

"Rachel... I don't think I can leave Nathan like this."

"What are you saying?"

Victoria shook her fist at nothing in particular, "I'm going to find a way to force Sean Prescott to let Sam come back, and to let Nathan go back to therapy!"

"That's not going to be easy, Vic. He's not the kind of man who's going to take suggestions from a teenage girl. Sorry, but it's true."

"Rachel, what about me makes you think I only give _suggestions_?" Victoria asked, kicking one hip out to the side and crossing her arms emphatically. "We'll do some digging, find some dirt, something. Everybody's got a weak point. Sean Prescott's going to find out he's not the only one with _ways._ "

"Vic, you're giving me chills!" Rachel said, taking Victoria's hands. She leaned in close, and added in a low, dramatic voice, "I think maybe it's time for Queen V to come out to play... one... last... time!"

Victoria shook her head, but smiled despite herself, sighing, "Fucking drama nerd!"


	3. Out to Play

**A/N:** This fic is a follow-up to Here at the End of All Things. All you really need to know is that things here are different, but if you want to know what changed and how, please consider reading the earlier work.

* * *

 **Chapter 3: Out to Play**

It's all of the good that won't come out of me  
And all the stupid lies I hide behind  
It's such a big mistake  
Lying here in your warm embrace  
-Rilo Kiley, All the good that won't come out

 **May 26th, 2012**

"We don't have to do this."

"You said digital photos can be traced, right?" asked Rachel from the passenger seat of Victoria's car. The svelte little BMW convertible was parked across the street from the Price residence in the heart of suburban Arcadia Bay.

"Yes. Well, yes. I think," Victoria stammered. She didn't really understand all the details, but she did know that when she put her early work on DeviantArt, the site had somehow known a bunch of details about her camera from the image file. That would be a bad thing to reveal when trying to blackmail Sean Prescott. There was likely only one camera like Victoria's in all of Lincoln county, to say nothing of little old Arcadia Bay.

"Well, Chloe's dad has an instant camera, and I'm sure she'd let us borrow it," Rachel said. It was subtle, but there was a strain to her voice. Like she was wincing.

"Okay, but ... do you want me to go in by myself?" Victoria offered.

Rachel didn't reply.

"What... what did you tell Chloe? When you broke..."

"When I _dumped her_?" interrupted Rachel, "I lied! Okay! Is that what you wanted to hear? I told her it was me. Just liked I lied to Sam & Nathan yesterday... and, yeah, okay, I didn't actually get the chance to lie _to_ Nathan because he was off his ass, but I've never been honest with him."

Victoria reached to place her hand on top of Rachel's as a comforting gesture, slowly, as if it might bite her, but before she could make contact, Rachel took her hand off the center console and shook her hands in the air, splay-fingered. "He creeps me out. Victoria! I never feel 100% safe around him, you know?"

Victoria nodded sadly, "Like sometimes you can see the negative space where the reason you expect of a normal person just isn't there? I know, Rachel. Just because he's my friend doesn't mean I'm not aware of his... limitations."

There was a pause. Both girls stared forward in silence.

"Rachel, sometimes it's okay to bend the truth a little. Trying to spare Chloe's feelings, trying to make Sam feel better, trying to make Nathan feel accepted... these are all good things."

"Chloe would have found a way to accomplish all of that and still be real," Rachel pouted.

"Well, maybe. But we can't all be Chloe Price, Rachel. And, you know your... your intentions were real. You wanted to help those people, and you did. Maybe, that's a different way of being real. Maybe that's more important than the exact words you used."

"My... intentions...," muttered Rachel quietly to herself. She stared off into the distance.

"I can go by myself," Victoria offered again.

Rachel shook her head. "No, I'll go. I'll rip off the band-aid. No time like the present, or some bullshit to that effect, right?"

* * *

Victoria Chase turned the camera over and over in her hands. It seemed to her such a strange idea that this clunky beige box was somehow the same manner of creature as the miracle of digital engineering she typically used. She knew enough not to be surprised that the older model lacked, for instance, an SD card slot, but she still felt herself looking for one out of habit. She found what appeared to be an adjustment slider with no label and slid it, and suddenly the thing popped open in her hands. She jerked back in surprise. Oh, so that's where they were hiding the viewfinder.

"Dude, relax. It doesn't bite," laughed Chloe Price. They both were seated on the hardwood floor, uncomfortable but cool, after Chloe had unearthed the camera from under her bed.

"I know! I'm just used to..." she retorted.

Chloe jumped in with, "Better?" and an accompanying smirk.

"Different," Victoria finished.

Different about summed it up. Chloe Price's room was unlike any bedroom Victoria could recall visiting. An American flag glowed in the morning light and wafted gently as a warm, summery breeze blew through. Pisshead played on the radio. A half completed chemistry project, glass tubes and beakers attached to a trellis, dominated the face of a blue wooden bureau. At its feet lay children's games, various shoe boxes full of colorful cards and a stuffed shark, all seemingly displaced to make room for it. Punk band and skate posters fought for space with fantasy warriors on unicorns and what seemed to be a height chart from early childhood. Next to that stood a full-length mirror, which Victoria could appreciate, adorned with a pirate captain's hat that looked several sizes too small, which she could not. Near where they sat on the floor, Victoria spied what appeared to be scorch marks from an explosion.

Her initial reaction had not been generous. She'd almost had to bite her tongue to keep from clucking it. Part of her wanted to swoon and steady herself on the sideboard, crying, "There's no theme at all! Won't _somebody_ think of the feng shui?"

Victoria's own room, back in Seattle as well as at Blackwell, had been designed by professionals. Chloe's room had been designed by... nobody. It had been shaped. Lived. Everything in here told a story. Everything had been _earned_ , even the scorch marks. _Especially_ the scorch marks! Chloe's disarray may make for a less pretty picture, but Victoria found herself a little envious of the questions it would engender. "Hey, what happened here?" instead of "How much did that cost?"

She looked down at the instant camera in her hands. It would also make for a less pretty picture, but she couldn't help but wonder about all the things it had seen.

She started, "Thanks for the camera, Chloe."

"Isn't it Kari? Kari Price?" smirked Chloe.

Victoria sighed and looked down, at the scorch mark. What was taking Rachel so long? After a few awkward minutes with Chloe filled with painfully forced conversation, she had excused herself to ostensibly greet Chloe's parents and Victoria felt it was past time she came back. It's not like Victoria's own relationship with Chloe was all that great. Time to work on that, she supposed.

"I knew your name."

"What?"

"Of course I did! You're tall and pretty and funny and nice to everybody. Some people have to work their asses off to make the kind of impression you do just by showing up! I was just being a bitch. I got it wrong on purpose to try and make you feel unimportant. And I'm sorry for that. It was petty. I'll never understand how you were cool enough to help me with my homework anyway."

"Well, maybe it wasn't about you, but those poor, mistreated chemistry problems. Maybe I just can't stand to see science done poorly!"

Victoria laughed, "See? Funny! I wish I could do that."

"Okay, who are you and what did you do with the real Victoria Chase?"

"It's me, Chloe. I'm just... I'm trying to... I don't know. I want to be different going forward. I'm trying to... make amends, I guess, to anyone I hurt."

Chloe scoffed, "I think maybe you overestimate your impact. Did you think I was up all night crying because you pretended to forget my name?"

"Well, of course not. You're you. I'd need a friggin' cannon to punch a hole in your aura of confidence."

"I have a cannon", blurted Chloe. "It's only plastic, but, just sayin'. If you need one..."

Victoria continued, "But not everybody is like that. And I kind of feel like I need to say it. Even if I didn't hurt you, I _tried_ to and that was shitty of me. Rachel's helping me learn to be better."

"Yeah..," muttered Chloe, her train of thought seemingly derailing at Rachel Junction. She gazed forlornly towards the door, in the general direction Rachel had gone. "Did she... has she said anything about... me?"

"She has. A lot. She thinks the world of you, Chloe."

Chloe stood up and stamped in a circle, "Then why did she _dump me?_ "

Victoria's mind came to a stand-still. Ordinarily this sort of opening is exactly where she'd jump in with a catty put-down. A part of her brain she couldn't seem to turn off was already concocting them. 'Make fun of her clothes!' it suggested, 'or her figure!' She knew she didn't want to do that, but she wasn't sure what to do in its place. She sent the idea back down to committee but all she got back was several clever-but-cruel jabs about cup size. What was the nice thing to do here? Tell her the truth? Make up some lie to spare her feelings? What would Rachel do? No. What would Rachel want to have done after the fact? After she had lied.

Tentatively, Victoria rolled out the truth, "Don't tell her I told you, but she thinks you're in love with somebody else."

"That's ridiculous!" Chloe cried, swinging her arms in exasperation. "Who else would I possibly be in love with?"

From Victoria's seat on the floor looking up, Chloe appeared framed by a series of Polaroid photos hanging from a line on the ceiling. Not taken from this camera, Victoria could tell that at a glance. They were somebody else's photos. She recognized Horsetail falls, lit up by the sunrise, but most of the photos were selfies of a girl Victoria didn't know. A girl with thick brown hair, big blue eyes and freckles. There was one in front of the falls, several on a mountain trail, one at the top of the space needle, one at the Grand Canyon, one inside a tent, one lit only by moonlight by the shores of a lake. (Damn! How the hell did she make _that_ work on an instant camera?) And in most of them, Chloe's face was right next to the photographer's, grinning a satisfied grin that practically glowed with pure glee.

Victoria looked at Chloe. She looked back at the girl with the freckles. Victoria had been of the opinion, loudly proclaimed whenever she was feeling catty, that Rachel and Chloe, as a couple, had been too cute to bear. As if their apparent happiness together had been designed solely as an affront to Victoria's sensibilities. And yet, she had never seen Chloe Price look quite as joyful as she did in these photos with her arm around the freckle girl.

She shrugged, "Um... I... I don't know, Chloe. Sorry."

Chloe plopped down to a seated position on the floor, arms crossed and face pouting. Victoria stole another glance up at the photos. So this was her, huh? This freckled hipster with the instant camera skills was the Goddess. The paragon. What did she have that was so very special, Victoria wondered. It almost seemed to her a shame that herself and this other photographer would never meet. Not in this life, anyway.

"Okay, so what sort of trouble are you and Rachel getting into?" Chloe asked, forcing a grin.

"This is above your pay-grade, Chloe. Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I just meant we're going to be messing with Sean Prescott. There might be blowback."

"Oh, fuck that guy! Does that mean you're using my dad's camera for blackmail photos or something?"

"Yes... uh... yes, that's it exactly," admitted Victoria, realizing she should not have been surprised that was where Chloe's mind had gone. She was starting to see some of that rebel spirit Rachel admired so deeply.

"That's so cool! I'm in! Burn down the patriarchy!" cried Chloe.

Victoria shook her head, "No. It has to be just us. We can handle the blowback. He won't fuck with the D.A.'s daughter, and I've only got a week left here. He can't touch me."

"Wait, what? A week left? You're not coming back to Blackwell next year?"

"I'm pursuing the photography program at a place called Northfield Mt Herman. It's in Massachusetts."

"Whoa! I... that's a long way! Well, shit, Victoria, when did you grow such a giant pair of lady-balls? Taking on Sean Prescott, moving to the other side of the country... If you're not careful I might actually miss you!"

"Thanks Chloe. I might actually miss you too!"

"So, I guess, uh... burn down the patriarchy for me, okay?"

"Will do!"

"Except my Dad. He's cool."

"We'll give him a pass," offered Rachel, now suddenly standing in the doorway. Both Victoria and Chloe jumped to their feet. A deadly silence settled in the air between Rachel and Chloe as they stared at each other in uncertain silence. Victoria looked back and forth between them. There were times she was actually glad she'd never had a serious boyfriend. She was tempted to see just how long they'd stand here like this, but she had work to do.

She cleared her throat, "Rachel, we should get moving."

* * *

If Rachel Amber was nothing else, she was audacious, Victoria pondered. After all, most people would wait until after dark to break into the Principal's office.

It was Saturday, but the main building was far from empty. The science rooms were in use and she could hear faint, repetitive French echoing from the 2nd floor language classrooms. Evan was almost certainly in the photography lab, such as it was, using the editing software. A few others fetched forgotten textbooks from lockers or posted fliers on the various notice boards. One or two very late lunchers scurried to the cafeteria, hoping to still be able to catch a few lukewarm tater tots or limp chicken tenders.

"Are we clear?" Rachel asked in a hushed voice.

"I guess," Victoria replied, looking around. Rachel took out her key and unlocked the outer office door. Victoria tried to look nonchalant, something with which she struggled under the best of circumstances. She felt exceedingly foolish.

Suddenly, Rachel grabbed her by the arm and pulled her through the open door into the receptionist's area. When she closed the door behind them, it was now suddenly very dark. After a moment, Rachel flicked on the flashlight on her phone. Victoria was shocked to find how close they two were standing. Only a few inches apart. She suddenly felt a little flushed.

"Do you have Wells' key as... as well?" Victoria stammered, gesturing to the other door, barely visible on the far side of the room.

"Pun intended?"

Victoria rolled her eyes by way of a no.

"No, I don't," Rachel admitted.

"What?"

"I'm only his Administrative Assistant during first period. We have the reception keys but not the one for his actual office," Rachel strolled over to the other door as she spoke. It grated on Victoria's nerves just how relaxed she seemed. "But don't worry, I can promise you the key is in this very room!"

Following Rachel's sweeping gesture, Victoria looked around. Filing cabinets, desk drawers, storage bins. There were thousands of places to hide a key, including an actual key rack dozens of keys deep. Searching this place, or even just trying all those keys would take forever.

"In here? You're sure?"

"Of course! What did you think I planned to do? Pick the lock? Make a pipe bomb?

Victoria shrugged at her and gestured around at the too many places to search.

"Well, what do we know about one Principal... Raymond... Wells?" Rachel asked, sauntering over to where Victoria stood by the reception desk.

Victoria shrugged. Wells was somewhat of a non-entity to her. She regarded him as largely functionary. Utilitarian. Yes, he was her Principal, but she a full-tuition student from a wealthy, influential family. Her mental image of him was of a big, comfy leather chair, just like the one in his office. She was coming to realize that for better or worse, she only really engaged with people who challenged her, and Wells was never going to be that. Not unless she got caught sneaking into his office, of course.

Rachel took Victoria's hand and led her over to the inner door while she explained, "Okay, well, he drinks... he's got a lot on his mind... and he's tall."

"So?"

"So, give me a boost," Rachel grinned.

Victoria blinked a few times. Although she'd been trying to learn not to let her sense of pride get the better of her, there was something a deeply galling about the idea of Victoria Chase; Stepladder. Still, there was something about Rachel, with her infectious, mischievous energy, to which Victoria just could not say no. She rolled her eyes in mock protest, then bent down and cupped her hands together.

"I let you push me in pools... I let you climb me..," Victoria lamented.

"Oh, you love it!"

Rachel put her foot in the cup and hand on Victoria's shoulder and climbed up into the boost. In her short, black bike shorts, Rachel's bare thigh pressed against Victoria's cheek. Her loose-fitting red-checked flannel shirt draped outward as Rachel reached up with her arm, giving away a peek up at her exposed midsection. Victoria caught the distinctive tang of jasmine from Rachel's clothing. She sighed internally. How was this even her life now? And why didn't she seem to mind all that much? Then suddenly it was over. Rachel came back down bearing a key from the top of the door frame and a wide, open-mouthed smile.

"Ta da!" she said, making an elaborate curtsy and presenting the key for Victoria to take. Which she did.

"You saw him put it there?" Victoria guessed.

"Nope! But I've been around him enough to know it's something he _would_ do!"

Victoria looked back and forth between Rachel and the key. If this was how keen Rachel's powers of observation were with someone as textbook as Wells, what it in the world did she see when she looked at Victoria herself?

Turning away from Rachel's gaze, Victoria unlocked the door and slowly pushed it open. She half expected alarms to go off, but all was quiet. Wells' office held a distinctive aroma of worn leather and old books. Victoria doubted Wells had ever read most of them. They probably came with the office. Part of maintaining the image. Eau de Principal. The drapes had been pulled, but just barely enough light filtered through to see by. Victoria could hear muffled voices from outside. Probably boys throwing things or jumping off things or whatever boy nonsense they were up to.

"Rachel, you'd better shut off that flashlight. It might be seen from outside. I'd really rather not end my Blackwell tenure handcuffed by campus safety."

Rachel turned off the light, but whispered, "I don't know. Might not be so bad if it was Mr. Bowers. Mmm- _mmm!_ "

Victoria blinked, "Ew. He's old enough to be your dad!"

"Only just barely!" offered Rachel, with a raunchy grin.

The part of Victoria's mind that kept track of this sort of thing turned to the page where it had written _Rachel Amber, weaknesses: Daddy Issues_ and furiously scribbled a few underlines. She asked, "What happened to your big gay romance with Chloe?"

"I'm bi, Victoria. I thought you... understood." Rachel actually seemed a little hurt. Victoria was confused. Why would Rachel think she understood? Sexuality had never been her strong suit. She'd learned to fake it, of course. She could flirt. She could sext. She'd had a few boyfriends, but mostly that had been about stopping particular other girls from having them. More about the maneuver than the man.

Rachel had turned her attention to searching through Wells' computer. Victoria looked around the room and found a few loose folders of student files and started looking through them. Seemed to mostly be the graduating class. Out of curiosity, she thumbed through Marisa Rogers. There was some waffle about her leadership of the Vortex club, crediting her with organizing campus events that had, in fact, been organized by Victoria herself. Her face pulled into a smirk. Only a 3.1 GPA. Tsk, tsk, Marisa!

"I found Nathan's file," whispered Rachel. "There's some weird stuff in here."

Victoria glanced over the desk and saw the familiar logo of the Prescott Foundation protruding from the inbox. The post-date seemed to indicate it had been sitting there at least 3 days. Victoria couldn't blame Wells for putting off having to deal with Sean Prescott, but her own business was more urgent. She tore the letter open and perused it.

Rachel whispered to her from Wells' chair, "Vic, there's at least three... no, wait, four times in here where a school nurse or psychiatrist has recommended Nathan to a therapist. His dad shut them down every time. Shit! It looks like he even got one of these poor people fired! They were just trying to do their jobs! Asshole!"

Victoria read aloud from the letter, "Miss Myers has failed to distinguish herself in her time at Blackwell, achieving neither remarkable academic success nor taking advantage of Blackwell's many extracurricular opportunities. It is difficult to justify continuing to offer her a Prescott Foundation scholarship when the are so many students out there more eager to make the most of a Blackwell Academy Education."

"He _is_ getting Sam kicked out! Dickwad!" exclaimed Rachel.

Victoria continued reading, "At our meeting next Friday I encourage the board to vote to discontinue Miss Myer's scholarship and find a more deserving candidate who better exemplifies, blah blah blah I expect I can count on your support... _fucking_ dickwad!"

The two girls stared at each other and shook their heads.

"It's bad..," started Rachel.

"But it's not _blackmail_ bad," finished Victoria. "Still, this meeting hasn't happened yet and Wells hasn't read it... Maybe it'll help if we destroy it?"

"It's something, at least. There's a shredder out behind the receptionist's desk," offered Rachel.

"I guess this was a bit of a dead end," Victoria muttered as she reread the letter.

"Well, I've got another idea where we can look."

"Mmm-hmm," Victoria replied, still distracted by the letter.

"And the good news is, there, the only person you'll have to worry about handcuffing you is me."

"Okay... Wait, what?"

"Nothing."

* * *

The Amber residence was more the type of home Victoria was used to. If her parents ever deigned to settle in the suburbs, this is about the type of house they'd look for. The contrast with Chloe's home was almost palpable. There, everything had been organic, but here, everything felt deliberate. No, not just deliberate. Almost contrived. The furniture, the decor, the law library in the front room where you couldn't possibly miss it. The whole place was political theater.

A statuesque woman who could not possibly be old enough to be Rachel's mother swept her way elegantly over to meet them at the door, sporting a long, flowing white skirt and royal blue tank top.

"Hi, Mom!" said Rachel. Victoria wanted to ask, 'Are you sure?' She looked over the woman again, unconvinced. Moms weren't supposed to look like this. Had she really managed to maintain that figure through child-birth and middle age?

"Hi, Sweetie! And you must be Victoria!" she said, turning a beaming smile onto her, "I'm Sera. Rachel's told me all about you!"

Victoria kind of hoped that wasn't actually true.

"We're going to sneak into dad's office and go through his files looking for dirt on a guy," Rachel said, with sudden bluntness, "It's okay though. The guy's an asshole."

With an admirable poker face, Sera turned to Victoria and asked, "Is this true?"

Determined not to be out-cooled, Victoria answered levelly, "Yes, it's true. Sean Prescott is an asshole."

Sera turned back to her daughter, crossing her arms, "You're making trouble for Prescott?"

Rachel nodded. Sera reached out and tapped Rachel on the nose, "That's my girl! Just be careful, you two. He is, indeed, an asshole, but he's a powerful asshole. Your dad is golfing with the mayor. Won't be back for hours. There's leftover veggie lasagna in the fridge when you're done sleuthing!"

"Thanks Mom!" replied Rachel. She turned and unlocked the door to her father's office, then slipped inside.

Sera held her gaze on Victoria. "Rachel told me you two used to not get along. It's so nice to see that you've kissed and made up!"

"We haven't kissed!" blurted Victoria immediately, for reasons she didn't entirely understand.

"It was only an expression," demurred Sera. Her face said volumes more than that, with a partly raised eyebrow and subtle, knowing smirk, but Victoria could read none of it. 'Me thinks the lady doth protest too much!', 'Why not?' and 'Good, because then I'd have to kill you!' all seemed equally valid interpretations of Sera's expression.

"I'm gonna... go... help," Victoria mumbled and practically dove into the office to get out of the glare that was Sera's presence. She was like Rachel on a whole other level, and Victoria felt very ill-prepared to deal with her. She felt like a child who had snuck their way onto a roller coaster for which they were, in fact, much too small.

Rachel was already reading through a folder full of papers when Victoria entered.

"Sorry, I kinda tell my mom everything," explained Rachel. Victoria hoped even more than before that wasn't entirely true. "If I couldn't do that I think I'd go kinda crazy."

"Yeah, she's... something!" was all Victoria could manage.

"I've got S.P.'s folder here, but there's plenty of others. He's got his fingers in enough pies, there could be some gold in just about any of these. Dig in!" said Rachel, gesturing to case files that lay across the sideboard.

An hour or so later, Victoria had read through many folders but learned little of import. She was actually surprised how much of it she already knew. Sheldon Pike sold drugs, but was bad at it. Drew North had helped him move Oxy to the football team. Rodney Spears sold fake IDs to Blackwell students. The only one that really shocked her was about a big bust of a dog-fighting ring up at the old mill about a year ago. Victoria herself was more of a cat person, but still, throw the book at 'em, Mr. Amber!

Out of file folders, she picked up what appeared to be a stack of building permits for Sean Prescott's pet project, Pan Estates, a new community going up south of town. The keystone in his bid to turn Arcadia Bay into Portland's version of Greenwich, Connecticut. The place for upper middle class folks who worked in the city, but didn't want to have to deal with its craziness, to commute from. And of course, they could all send their kids to Blackwell. Whatever else you could say about the man, he did seem to take a genuine pride in promoting the school. Or maybe the school was just another tool for promoting the development. It was probably the latter. Prick.

"There's a lot here. Like... a lot," muttered Rachel, "But none of it is solid. All we could prove with this is that my dad _suspects_ a lot of things. I guess this was stupid. If my dad had a smoking gun, he'd..."

"Hold on, look at this," interrupted Victoria. She spread out a series of building permits on the table. All of them had been approved by the same inspector. Rachel's dad had circled the name on each print-out.

"Yeah, I recognize this guy's name from the file. My dad suspected Mr. Prescott had bribed the inspector, but he couldn't prove it."

"Okay, but follow me here, where's there's smoke..."

"There's _fire!_ " said Rachel, with sudden enthusiasm. Lights danced in her eyes, just like the reflection through Nathan's window. Outside, the sun was going down, but this time, Rachel's back was to the sunset. Victoria wasn't sure how that worked.

She continued, "Prescott wouldn't bribe an inspector unless there was a reason. Like maybe these houses aren't up to code somehow."

"Okay, but what code? I mean, if they're built 3 feet too close to the curb, that's not exactly great blackmail material. Not very sexy."

"Oregon Structural Specialty Code 329. Chapter 15. He's got a copy of it right here. Looks like a whistle-blower with one of the builders called in an anonymous tip. It deals with..," Victoria stopped and put her hand to her mouth.

"What?"

"It deals with special requirements for roof construction in a hurricane prone area. He used roofers from out of state. They thought we're _not_ a hurricane prone area, but we absolutely _are!_ Not a single one of those houses is up to storm code! He's building million-dollar deathtraps!"

Rachel hopped up and came over to Victoria. She started looking through the papers to which Victoria referred. "Okay, _that's_ sexy!" she said. She probably meant the death traps, but she was looking at Victoria when she said it.

"This is fucked up! I mean, picture this. A big storm blows through town..."

"Mmmm," nodded Rachel. It almost seemed like she liked that idea.

"... and all these people's homes are ruined, but because they're not up to code, they're fucked! Insurance won't cover it. They can't even sue Prescott! He's made his money and gotten away by then. They'd have to settle for suing the roofer or the town for letting them pass inspection."

"Arcadia Bay can't afford that. So, all it would take is a decent-sized storm to basically wipe out the town! Is it just me or is that actually... kinda hot?" asked Rachel.

"You're crazy!" replied Victoria.

"Hey, you're the one who kept hanging out with me after you had to pull me down off a statue," retorted Rachel, playfully bumping Victoria with her shoulder. "Seriously though, I think this is the best we're going to find. Even if it doesn't conclusively prove anything, _'Million-Dollar Deathtraps'_ is not something he's going to want on the 10 o'clock news!"

"I'll get some photos of these papers."

"Nothing with my Dad's handwriting!" suggested Rachel, retreating to the desk chair and sitting, then swiveling to face the window. "Okay, here's the plan. First, we have to put everything back as it was."

"Then what?"

"Then, we reheat some veggie lasagna."

"Yum. Then what?

"We make an appointment to see Sean Prescott in the morning. And then... we twist the knife," Rachel said.

"You never did explain that to me," said Victoria as she worked the satisfyingly chunky mechanism of the Polaroid camera, "Your little statue episode?"

Rachel stared out the window as she replied, "Well... maybe I'll show you some day soon." Her tone was distant, contemplative. She put her feet up on the far corner of the desk.

Victoria finished photographing the evidence. To her surprise, she found she actually quite liked working with the clunky, old instant camera. The images lost a lot of detail, but gained a lot of personality. In the case of the blackmail photos, the Polaroid borders made them seem especially salacious and forbidden.

Speaking of salacious and forbidden, she turned and looked at Rachel from behind. The orange glow through the window gleamed off her bare legs and set her hair aglow. Victoria framed her in the viewfinder.

Click! Whirrr. Victoria flapped the photo dry and found she was pretty happy with it. Not quite Instant Camera Goddess level, but good. Something about the instant film perfectly captured the warmth of the moment in a way her digital photos would not.

She noticed Rachel had turned and looked at her in surprise.

"Don't worry," Victoria offered. "That one's just for me. Golden hour, n'est-ce pas? Couldn't help it."

Rachel smiled at her, "Fucking photo nerd!"


	4. Silence

**A/N:** This fic is a follow-up to Here at the End of All Things. All you really need to know is that things here are different, but if you want to know why, and in what way, please consider reading the earlier work.

I had originally planned on 4 chapters, but this one got a little long and had a natural break in the middle, so we're going to 5!

* * *

 **Chapter 4; Silence**

On a real good day, I'm the world's best friend  
You'd be mine too, if you caught me just then  
And though I'm not happy, I can pretend  
On a real good day

-Robbie Fulks, On a Real Good Day

 **May 27th, 2012**

"Who?"

"Samantha Myers. Nathan's girlfriend. You know who she is. We want her to be able to keep attending Blackwell next year." Victoria Chase crossed her arms and tried to lean back in the firm leather chair that sat in front of Sean Prescott's desk. The high, stiff back with the hard buttons seemed purposely designed to keep her uncomfortable, leaning forward like she was hanging on Prescott's word.

The man himself sat in a doughy pile between an antique mahogany desk and a massive leather chair that both seemed to engulf and eclipse him. His body nearly lost among the oversized furniture just as his scrunched little features were crammed into the very center of his large, potato-like head. Tiny glasses framed his rodent-like eyes and almost seemed to act as the singularity that drew his entire face together. If a fairground caricature artist were tasked with drawing an innately small man trapped in a life that was too big for him, the result would not look entirely unlike Sean Prescott.

As if to demonstrate who had the power between them as Victoria struggled for comfort, Prescott reclined deeply into his far more luxurious chair. His round, pulpy face smirked at her, "That sounds like something you should discuss with Principal Wells."

"Please, Mr. Prescott, I think we both know who the real decision-maker is around here," she said, batting her eyes. That's right. The cute girl is flattering you. Soak it up, you slime! "And we also want Nathan to be able to continue seeing his therapist."

She noticed his beady eyes flinch at mention of the T-word. An obvious sore spot. "I've always thought you were a smart girl, Miss Chase. Smart enough to know when things don't concern you."

"Nathan is my friend. He's like a brother to me. I want what's best for him."

Prescott made a rough exhale that might have almost passed for a laugh if it came from any other face, "You're a teenager. You don't even know what's best for yourself and you certainly don't know what's best for Nathan."

Victoria could tell when she had been dismissed. She knew she was about at the limits of where civility would take her in this confrontation. Time to get less civil. She snorted, "Is that a joke? Have you ever even met the real Nathan? Do you know _why_ he gets picked on? It's not because he's weak. It's because you're trying to make him something he's not. He doesn't want to be on the football team any more than the other guys want him there, and the only reason he did well in the Tempest was because of Sam."

Victoria didn't think it was possible for Prescott's weaselly little eyes to narrow further, yet narrow they did. "Do you enjoy attending Blackwell Academy, Miss Chase? Would you like to continue doing so?"

Victoria scoffed, "You think you can get me kicked out next year? I'm not some helpless scholarship waif, you know. My parents have a lot of ears in Seattle. You think Wells wants to make enemies of them?"

Prescott tented his fingers together and enunciated slowly, "I'm just suggesting that maybe sticking to your own affairs would be more beneficial for your long-term academic success."

She settled back into the chair, as much as it would let her, and crossed her legs, wrapping her hands around the chair's arms. She was going for elegant-yet-challenging. This soggy bag of loose meat needed to know it was Victoria Maribeth Chase he was dealing with, "You know what? Get me kicked out next year. I dare you! You go ahead and cash in your little favors and burn your little bridges and you do it. I wanna see you do it. I wanna see just how much it costs you. I bet it won't be cheap."

"You'd be surprised what I'd be willing to spend to protect my son." He continued his deliberately slow delivery. Probably thought it was intimidating. Victoria was not impressed.

"I was certainly surprised to learn what you're willing to spend to bribe building inspectors", quipped Victoria, tossing the Polaroid photos onto the table. "I admit those aren't my best work. I kept the better shots for my portfolio."

Prescott picked up the photos. His piggy little face tried to hide it, but Victoria recognized the tell-tale flinch of someone who knows their weakness has been exposed. With flustered urgency, he said, "What do you think you're going to do with this? Hmm? Who do you think you're going to convince? You could have faked this in five minutes, and even in Arcadia Bay it would have to be a very slow news day for the local press to run a story about building codes. This isn't a fight you can win."

Victoria leaned forward, all charm again. The weight of the ruffle on the front of her royal blue silk blouse pulled the fabric forward and gave away just enough of her cleavage to be distracting. She knew. She'd practiced in the mirror, "But wouldn't it be easier not to fight at all? Wouldn't it be easier just to let Nathan keep seeing his therapist and his girlfriend? He'll be happier. I'll be happier. And I can make all these photos go away, and then you'll be happier. Doesn't that sound like a win for everybody?"

Prescott's dark eyes became even colder and denser, like they had withered into specks of coal. His undersized features settled in a scowl he probably hoped was stern, but just came off to Victoria as pissy. If you asked that same caricature artist to draw an angry cartoon rat face on Mr Potato-Head, you would wind up with yet another ringer for Sean Prescott. He gestured toward the door. "This meeting is over, Miss Chase."

"I guess it is," she replied, drawing herself up to her feet imperiously. She glowered down her nose at him, "Do right by Nathan, Mr. Prescott, or I will blow the roof off Pan Estates!"

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Victoria paced around her room, still trying to compose herself. Where the hell was Rachel? Why wasn't she there? They were supposed to do this together! Nobody stands Victoria Chase up! Just as she reached for her phone to call and angrily demand an explanation, the phone beat her to it, chirping into life with the ring-tone she had set for Rachel; Princess Fuchsia's theme from Perils of Prismatica.

She huffed at it. Oh, of course _now_ she's available! She no-shows at Prescott's office but then expects everybody else to drop everything and jump whenever she calls. Well, no thank you! Victoria Chase is not so easily cast aside! Let her wait. Let her stew. Let her come crawling back.

Her resolve lasted all the way to the second ring before the answered.

Before Victoria could complain, Rachel opened with, "I'm sorry I wasn't there. How'd it go?"

Victoria took a breath. Why was it so hard to stay mad at Rachel? If anybody else had ever stood her up like that she'd have never let them hear the end of it. She was still riding Taylor for the Sriracha Incident, and that was from freshman year. "I'm still shaking. Talking to that asshole is like arguing with a beady-eyed ham with an attitude problem. He does this squint thing at you the whole time. Like he's only barely tolerating your existence. I really hope Nathan doesn't turn out like that."

"Did you use my phrase?"

"About blowing the roof off? Yes. And it sounded every bit as corny as I thought it would," she rolled her eyes. She still couldn't quite believe she'd said it. "What's our next move? I don't think that prick will budge based on our little blackmail threat."

"I knew he wouldn't," Rachel admitted with a sigh.

"What? Then why did you let me go in there? Why weren't you there to back me up! I needed you! Where the hell are you?"

"I'm at Pan Estates and... you know, I ought to thank you. I realized something about myself that night we were out in the rain, and I don't think I ever would have known if you hadn't pulled me down off that statue, but now I see it; or... feel it, I mean. It's so obvious. Staring me right in the face all these years."

"Rachel, are you..." High? Crazy? Coming on to me? Some combination thereof? Victoria didn't know what to make of this sudden wistful turn, but then, a lot about Rachel seemed to mystify her.

"But I can't do it on purpose. At least, I don't think I can."

Victoria only managed to make a few incoherent huffs in reply. She paced aimlessly in a circle. She had really thought she had a handle on this week, but it was fast degrading into a series of curve-balls.

Rachel lobbed yet another, "I need you to make me mad, Vic."

"What?"

"Mad. It's an emotion. See also; Angry. Furious. I need you go full alpha bitch on me one last time."

"I... Rachel...I don't... I don't want to!" Bitch had been a word Victoria used to sling around like it was seasoning. Somehow, after a few days with Rachel, the word had its old bite back. She didn't really want to be that any more. She didn't want to say it. Her time in the bitchisphere was over, or at least she had hoped it was.

"Come on, I know you want to. You've been sitting on it all week, letting it build up. All the insults, all the mean. You've got to let out it! Isn't it better to blow it in the face of the one person who's asking?"

Victoria paused. Her mouth moved wordlessly. Was that really what Rachel thought of her? She _had_ felt it building up. She felt like her worse instincts, her malice, her spite, her awful words, were akin an angry pit bull she was just barely managing to keep on a leash. But to think that Rachel could tell, and worse, expected it of her; that Rachel would come to her as a reliable local bitchiness supplier; it stung. It really stung.

"Vic... I've been lying to you. I don't care about your problems. I needed you around for my own sake. I'm using you to help me test something. You talked about being true to my intentions? Well I guess I can still fool you after all, huh?"

A trap-door opened in Victoria's heart. All the good will of the past few days fell out. The stress of confronting Sean Prescott and now the chill of Rachel's apparent betrayal was a 1-2 punch for which she had no counter. Part of her objected that Rachel was lying for some reason; Just saying that to provoke a reaction. But another part felt like that might actually be worse than if she was telling the truth. It felt like being socked in the gut when she was already nauseous. Her hands shook. Her eyes turned cold and distant. She let the leash slip from her hands.

"Rachel... Fucking... Amber!"

"Yes?"

"You are a fucking sham! A hollow, fake, nothing of a person," Victoria cried. She held the phone right in front of her so she could spit her words directly into it.

Rachel made no reply.

"You think you're popular? You're not popular. You don't have 're just nice enough to all the boys that they all think they're going to get to fuck you, and the girls just have to smile and nod, but we all know the truth. I'd call you a slut, but at least a slut is real. A slut does the work. You're a fake slut. You're gold paint on a fucking blow-up doll!"

Silence.

"You wanted to 'rip the band-aid off' and face Chloe, but you couldn't even stay in a room with her for five minutes. And now, here, today, you leave me to face beady-eyed ham-man all by myself, because you didn't want to face the possibility someone might dare to say no to Rachel Fucking Amber! No wonder you were too scared to run away without someone to hold your hand. Coward is a bad look for you!"

Silence.

"You feel inadequate compared to your mom? Well, guess what! You should! She's a rare beauty with charisma for days! Insightful, perceptive, funny. I was only around her for two minutes and I already like her better than you. And those two minutes were all took to see what a sad little parody of her you perform every day. Get your own personality, why don't you? They're not expensive."

Silence. Maybe a sniffle.

"Chloe Price never loved you! You were right. You knew it the whole fucking time, but you're such a liar, you were even lying to yourself! She _is_ in love with someone else, and what's more, she always has been. You were just a placeholder. That's all you're ever going to be for anybody, because nobody will ever get to know the real you! If there even is one!"

She put the phone back to her ear and heard short, stuttering breaths on the other end of the line, but no answer. Bitch knew she was right! Time to end this!

"Some day, Chloe and her freckle girl are going to be really, truly happy together, something you're not even capable of, and she won't even _think_ about you, ever again!"

Victoria had to pull the phone away as Rachel launched into a mighty scream. She heard a roar of wind, and then a dull clatter as if the phone had been dropped, then more wind static, and then silence.

In the distance, thunder rumbled. Dark clouds descended on the horizon like carrion birds. A sudden gust rattled Victoria's windows. She dropped to her knees and shivered. With quavering voice, she meekly called Rachel's name over the dead line. And again. And a third time.

Silence.

The rain began to fall.


	5. The Real Me

A/N: This fic is a follow-up to Here at the End of All Things. All you really need to know is that things here are different, but if you want to know why, and in what way, please consider reading the earlier work.

* * *

 **Chapter 5; The Real Me**

Ophelia was a tempest cyclone  
A goddamn hurricane  
Your common sense, your best defense  
Lay wasted and in vain

-Natalie Merchant, Ophelia

 **May 27th, 2012**

"No way! No fucking way!" muttered Victoria to herself.

Pan Estates looked like a tornado had hit it. A little one, anyway. Fallen leaves and twigs, torn banners and tossed lot signs were scattered everywhere. A row of three port-a-potties lay prone on their backs. The homes, generic, bulky McMansions as Victoria's parents would call them, stood with their stonework fronts and vinyl sides, and the clustered, over-large design typical of modern home building. Designed to look expensive while cutting as many corners as possible. And every single one of them was missing part or all of its roof. Ruined trellises and scattered shingles littered the grounds. Some of the fallen roofs had caved in side walls when they came down. Others just lay prone and splayed across driveways or backyards. In the middle of it all; the epicenter; was the exhausted form of Rachel Amber, lying on one hip in a wasteland of dirt and water and debris.

Designer shoes once again slapping in the mud, Victoria ran through the hissing rain to the fallen figure. "Jesus Christ! You did this! Jesus Christ!" she cried, literally clutching at her pearls. " _You_ did _this!_ "

Rachel looked up, weakly. She was covered in mud. Her hair was a knot of windswept tangles. Blood flowed freely from one nostril and streaked a wild stain across her clothes. Between heavy breaths, she wheezed, "And you thought... nobody would... get to know the real me!"

Victoria dropped to her knees in the mud, "You're some kind of... witch! Some kind of... mutant!" she stammered, shaking her head.

"It's just me, Vic. I just have this... thing. I don't know how I got it or how long I've had it. I don't think I even would have realized if you hadn't pulled me out of that trance... I might not have ever known."

"Well, I hope you enjoyed it, because we're never doing this again! Do you hear me? You could have been killed out here! Look at you! You can't even stand! And I fucking hated saying those things to you. I didn't want to say any of them!"

"It's okay. I made you. I'm so sorry! I had to know! It broke my heart to tell you..."

"You didn't make me, you _let_ me. I know you like to think you're this puppet-master but you don't get to take credit for other people's damage! I'm the one that thought of those things to say and I'm the one who said them, and all you did was give me half an excuse!" Victoria exclaimed, as she moved and squatted next to Rachel. Rachel didn't make eye contact. She was staring down at the mud, struggling to keep her head up.

"Well, never again! Do you hear me? And not just to you. To anybody! I'm fucking done with it!" Victoria cried. She pulled Rachel's limp arm around her shoulder and stood, dragging her to her feet.

"You're strong," mumbled Rachel. She seemed on the verge of losing consciousness.

"Some of us have to go to cross-fit, you know! We can't all be perfect, skinny little rain-waifs!"

Rachel's legs gave out and Victoria hefted her up into a princess carry, the mud from Rachel's thigh smearing across Victoria's blouse. Victoria was amazed at the lightness of her. Rachel was small, yes, but Victoria felt if she tossed her into the air, it wouldn't be a surprise to see her float away on the breeze or evaporate into a mist. Rachel's head slumped and her single, blue feather earring tickled its way across Victoria's collarbone. She looked down at it and wondered; The feather and the girl. Which was the anchor for which?

"It's okay," Rachel mumbled, barely audible over the rain, "What you said... I deserve it."

"No, you fucking don't, okay, Rachel? You damn near got yourself killed out here doing God knows what just to help me and Nathan and Sam. So when you wake up, you and I are going to have a little chat about exactly what it is that you deserve."

"But I lied! When I said I only wanted you around..."

"Maybe people don't care. You ever think of that, miss master manipulator? Maybe people just like you and you didn't trick them into it. Maybe whatever dumb, ulterior motive you had when we started hanging out doesn't matter so much compared to all the stuff we went through."

"No, I mean, I ... want you... to know... I _do_ care, Victoria. About you... I... I think I..." Rachel muttered, head lolling as she drifted into unconsciousness.

Victoria felt her face twist into a snarl. Part of her wanted to drop Rachel right in the mud. But another part of her knew, somehow, she could never do that. She didn't even want to put her down. She felt like she'd be quite happy carrying Rachel around for the next few days just to make sure she was safe. Even after all the horrible things they had just said to each other; or, no, especially after them; the idea of letting Rachel go just didn't compute. You're never so close to someone as when you stab them, she supposed.

Besides, a gaggle of butterflies in her stomach really wanted to hear the end of Rachel's last sentence. They had high hopes for it.

She reached the car and managed to awkwardly open the door with the hand under Rachel's legs. She dropped to her knees and slid Rachel off of her and into the passenger seat. She was completely unconscious now, and Victoria had to belt her in and pile her limbs in the seat before she could safely shut the door.

"Frigging lunatic! Thinks she's so great just because she controls the weather!" Victoria muttered to herself, then she stopped short, struck with the absurdity of what had just come out of her own mouth. She threw her head back and laughed, loud and free, letting the rain wash down her face. Rachel's rain. Because of course Rachel had superpowers! Of course she did! Victoria felt she should be more shocked. She should be horrified! But somehow, it just all made too much sense. She felt that if she tried to tell Chloe or Steph or any of Rachel's other friends, they would just say, "Oh, you didn't know? Look, it's right here on her Facebook profile. Leo. Aspiring actress. Controls the weather. How did you miss that?"

She climbed into the car and saw Rachel's prone form sunk into the passenger seat; the force of nature at rest. As the sheeting rain beat a heavy drumbeat on the soft-top, she looked at herself in the mirror. Make-up and hair, ruined by the rain. Leggings and skirt, ruined by mud. Blouse, ruined by blood. Rachel's blood. That was something else she should be horrified about. Two-weeks-ago-Victoria certainly would have been. She'd already be calculating cleaning bills and shopping for replacements in her head. Yet somehow, despite all this, Victoria was never more proud of her appearance than at that moment.

She reached over and used her sleeve to wipe the blood from under Rachel's delicate nose.

"Chloe Price is a fucking idiot."

Before leaving, she pulled the instant camera from the center console and took a shot of the damaged build site. Then she had to take another because she wasn't happy with composition. Then the third one was out of focus. She briefly experimented with trying to get Rachel in the shot, but thought better of it. Photo number four, she deemed worthy of keeping. When the Polaroid was dry, she wrote on the back, "You were warned!" She wasn't sure exactly what Sean Prescott would make of all this, but hopefully the hassle of cleaning this up, and the ensuing legal headache, would at least keep him out of Nathan's hair through the summer. Long enough for him to miss the meeting canceling Sam's scholarship and to get Nathan back into therapy.

The sun was setting as she drove back along the coast road to Arcadia Bay. Rachel's dark, swirling storm clouds, having spent their fury, rolled away inland. The rain thinned out. The orange glow of the sunset filled the car like a warm embrace. As they neared town, Victoria heard a weak, weary little voice singing to her from the passenger seat.

"Victoria Chase, Victoria Chase,  
She helped me go destroy Pan Estates,  
She's trying to make up for her mistakes..."

She looked and saw Rachel was awake, the sunset reflecting in her eyes. She wore an adoring smile.

Thin little bow lips pulled into a genuine grin, Victoria finished the song herself: "Victoria-toria Chase!"

* * *

 **June 3rd, 2012**

All day, the Blackwell Academy parking lot had been host to the usual year end drama; best friendships and one-true-loves torn apart for months. And it was, as always, ever-so-tragic to the students involved, but somewhat less-so to the impatient parents, as they stood next to laden SUVs, eager to get back on the road. There had been Justin and Trevor; putting their epic bromance on hold for the summer; Dana swearing her undying devotion to whoever boy-of-the-month was; poor, useless Brooke trying one last time to flirt with poor, clueless Warren.

Victoria had the forethought to get her farewell drama out of the way at the final Vortex Club party the night before. After tossing the guest list and inviting literally every student on campus, she had slipped away with Taylor and Courtney and told them in person about her departure. They were all three lightly sauced at the time, so there was no shortage of ugly crying and protestations of eternal, long-distance friendship. In her own way, she would genuinely miss them, but at the same time she was happy for them to have a chance to make something for themselves. It would have been arrogant, even for her, to think of them as baby birds she was releasing from the nest, but she felt like maybe the three of them had all been holding each other back.

Her own luggage and furniture had, of course, been handled by professionals, and as the moving truck rolled away out off campus, it left a sparse parking lot dotted with a handful of stragglers. Herself, Rachel, Chloe, Nathan & Sam along with a scattered few others. Even Principal Wells had left his farewell vigil at the top of the stairs and gone back inside to... she didn't know. Hibernate? She couldn't really picture him doing anything other than standing in a closet until Fall.

"Well, Victoria, I can honestly say I'm going to miss you. Like, I'm picturing Blackwell without you and there's this definite hole where the Queen should be!"

"The Queen is dead, Chloe," nodded Victoria. She opened the door of her convertible and stashed what little luggage she had left, her laptop and camera bags, behind the seat. She clicked the button on the key fob to put the top down. It was going to be a beautiful evening's drive.

"Who's going to be Queen without you? Courtney? She's like, a baroness, at best."

"Maybe there doesn't need to be a Queen."

"Aw, sweet! ANARCHY FOREVER!"

"I'll miss you too, Chloe," Victoria smiled.

"Um, I've been kinda meaning to ask, could you maybe do something for me? I have this friend who's also really into photography, and I know she's been looking at art schools too. Would you mind talking to her? About Blackwell and Northfield and anywhere else you looked? Letting her pick your brain?"

Victoria blanched. So she was going to get to talk to the Instant Camera Goddess after all. She didn't know how to feel about that. But she did know how she _wanted_ to feel about it. "Any time. Just give her my digits. What's her name?"

"Max," Chloe sighed, as though she was whispering the names of angels. Victoria had never heard so much longing packed into a single syllable. She looked past Chloe at Rachel waiting a short distance away. Never stood a chance. Perfect, curvy little Rachel, with her silky hair and her hypnotic eyes and her smile that lit up the stage. And she never stood a chance.

"I'll talk to Max."

"You're the best!" cried Chloe. She threw her arms around Victoria and squeezed.

"No, I'm not," she groaned. Chloe hugged a lot harder than Rachel did and this was still new territory for her.

"You're getting better!" laughed Chloe.

As Chloe walked away, Nathan and Sam took their place, happily telling Victoria that Sean Prescott had _somehow_ changed his mind and Sam's scholarship wasn't canceled and Nathan was going back to therapy and they were so happy and she wasn't listening to a word of it. All her attention was focused on Chloe and Rachel talking a short distance away. For anybody else, it might have been hard to hear their conversation over the more immediate chatter, but for Victoria Chase, gossip-maven, this sort of eavesdropping was a practiced art form.

She heard Chloe stumble awkwardly as she said, "You were... you know... my first, and you'll always mean a lot to me, but ... I get that... ' _us_ '... as a thing... is in the past now, and I'm... cool with that. I want us to be friends again. I want us to be able to hang out and go to shows and act crazy this summer and not have it... be weird."

Rachel broke into a relieved smile, "Can't geek out with Steph and Mikey all the time, huh?"

Chloe nodded, "Steph needs time to create. By the way, it's still not too late to change your mind and roll up for Fortress of Insanity!"

Rachel laughed, "Maybe some other time. I've already got all the insanity I can handle! Chloe, I'm glad we're talking again. You seem like you've really come around since last week. What changed?"

"Just something Victoria said to me, and... some time to think about it."

"Victoria, huh?" Rachel purred, shooting a glance back at her, as if she had expected Victoria to be listening the whole time. Dammit! How did she know? And what was she going to say next?

It seemed like Sam and Nathan were wrapping up their good-byes. She replied and hugged them both, to the best of her ability, and they gathered together with Chloe.

Chloe said, "I'm gonna give Sam a ride to the train station. Good-bye, Victoria! I hope Massachusetts kicks ass! Catch you later, Rachel!"

"Absolutely!" Rachel replied.

Rachel stood with Victoria and watched as Nathan loaded Sam's bags into the truck bed and all three of them climbed into the cab. Nathan gave Victoria a long wave goodbye as Chloe pulled the truck out of the parking lot. Victoria waved back, biting her lip and trying not to cry.

Rachel commented, "Nathan Prescott and Chloe Price getting along. What kind of crazy world have you wrought, Victoria Chase?"

"It won't last," Victoria sighed. "Hopefully by the time his dad gets out from under Roof-gate, Nathan will have made enough progress in therapy that even Sean Prescott can see it."

"You did what you could. Having his dad leave him alone for a few months might be the best thing that ever happened to Nathan. You can't live his life for him forever."

"Yeah."

Rachel moved to stand in front of her, "I'm in your hands, Vic. You know my secret."

Victoria smirked and kicked her hip out to the side, "I know a couple of them. Better be nice to me."

"You don't care? You're not afraid of me? _I'm_ afraid of me!" Rachel admitted quietly to the ground.

"Whatever this thing is... your power, or whatever... you didn't ask for it. You're not changing the world with it. And don't forget who had to carry your unconscious ass out of that mud pit. It's a little hard to be intimidated when I remember you wasted in my arms with pine needles in your hair."

"That whole day is kind of a blur. But I remember being in your arms. I liked that part."

"No! Not like that! Never again!" Victoria exclaimed, pointing a stern finger in Rachel's face.

"I promise. Never again," Rachel replied, her eyes locked earnestly on Victoria's. She lifted her hand to Victoria's point and intertwining their fingers.

"So... I guess... this is... good-bye," Victoria muttered sadly, watching as Rachel's delicate little fingertips swam softly amongst her own.

"Not necessarily. You'll be around all summer, right? It's only a train ride between here and Seattle. You could come visit. Or I could come up and invade the Chase space." As she spoke, Rachel's fingers clasped around the outside of Victoria's hand and squeezed.

"I'd like that," Victoria replied, squeezing back.

"But just in case this _is_ good-bye..." Rachel lifted herself on her toes and gave Victoria a quick peck on the lips.

"Ha! I knew it! I knew you were into me!" Victoria blurted, before she could stop herself.

Rachel slowly tilted her head to the side as a sly smile spread across her face, "Am I? Or am I just being the politician again? Am I just telling you what I think you want to hear? Which do you want to be true?"

She was still balanced on her toes, eyes locked with Victoria's. It was hard to look away. Like staring into a sunset.

Victoria moved her mouth open but no sound came out.

Rachel continued, "Vic, we got to know each other this week like nobody else. It felt... intimate. Special. And yes, I'm attracted to you. You were right. You win. Does that make you happy?"

Victoria's mind swam. She found to her great surprise she didn't really care about being right or winning any more. The old Victoria really was gone, and the new Victoria, whoever she would be, wouldn't really clock-in until September. For a few short months, she had nothing to prove to anybody. Maybe she never really did. It felt refreshing, freeing. For the summer at least, she had nothing to lose.

Well, not nothing. There was one thing she didn't want to lose. Rachel was right. It did feel intimate. Their... friendship... relationship... whatever it was, even at only a week old, it was like nothing else in her life. She had never really thought of another girl that way, but truth be told, she had never really thought of boys that way either. Her old facade had kept everybody at arm's length. There was someone within arm's length right now, and she very much felt like she wanted to keep her there. Seeing Rachel wobble on her tip-toes gave her the excuse she needed. She reached out and put her hands on Rachel's waist.

"What would make me happy..," she mumbled in the quietest, softest voice she had ever mustered, "...is if you would kiss me some more."

Rachel smiled and leaned into the embrace. "As you command!"

And holy shit! Holy shit. That was about all Victoria's brain was capable of. The schemer, the meticulous organizer and the control freak at the core of her all fell silent, her thought process suddenly limited to 'holy shit' on a loop.

It wasn't her first kiss, or even her first make-out, but it may have been the first with someone she actually cared about. And what a difference it made! And with another girl! No, not _another_ girl. _The_ girl. Rachel! Wonderful, wonderful Rachel! Soft, delicious, precious Rachel! Electric, magical, magnetic Rachel!

What a strange feeling to put her arms around that petite waist, to bend her neck down instead of up, to meet those sweet-tasting lips with her own. How were such small differences so exciting? How did they feel so right?

Rachel pressed forward and Victoria dropped into the waiting seat of her convertible. Rachel turned sideways and lowered herself onto Victoria's lap, draping her arms over Victoria's shoulders in a way she found utterly and completely enticing. Their legs lay in a bouquet together just outside the car. One hand settled on the small of Rachel's back and the other on her bare thigh. Should she say something? She should say something. But then Rachel's hand was on her cheek and she was leaning in and suddenly her mouth had so many better things to do!

So was this it? She liked girls now? Is that what this was? It was certainly so much better than with... whatsisname. Oh, that guy, you know! The last one she kissed? Or the first one? He had that hat... played a sport... She couldn't really remember their names right now, but to be fair, she had Rachel's sweet, slippery lips and glancing, tantalizing tongue to contend with. There was only one name in her brain right now. One name and the taste of fire.

She pulled away and looked at her. Rachel. Lying, cocky, fully-faulty Rachel! God, how she loved those flaws! Those perfect, endearing, intimate flaws that mirrored her own in so many ways. How electric, how ecstatic, how full of fireworks it made her feel to have that connection incarnate. To know that nobody would understand her damage quite like the girl with the matching wound. She wanted to take her by the hand and run screaming through the streets, and that mental image gave her an idea. It escaped her lips before she even had time to consider.

"You know what? Come with me!"

"What?" Rachel laughed.

"Get in the car and come to Seattle with me," Victoria explained, patting the passenger seat. "We'll call our respective parentage from halfway up the interstate (so it's too late for them to say no) and tell them you're coming to visit me. And then in a week, or two, or whatever, you can catch the train back down."

"I... don't have any... stuff... anything packed..." Rachel thought out loud, a smiled spreading across her face.

"I know! Isn't it perfect? You finally get to run away! Sort of. And no luggage just means an excuse to go shopping. And lucky you! You have a guide to all the hottest and hautest couture in Seattle."

Rachel broke into a wide smile. Her fingers danced in the short, delicate hairs at the nape of Victoria's neck. She laughed, "It was you, all along! My big rebel heroine come to carry me away!"

"If you say so," Victoria laughed, rolling her eyes. But truth be told, she was pretty proud of that title. She kind of wanted it on a t-shirt. "You ready to blow this town?"

"Have been for almost 7 years!" Rachel touched her finger to Victoria's lips, "Look at you! You're all relaxed. All that tension is gone!"

"I had help," Victoria demurred.

"Ready for anything?" Rachel asked, as she scootched off Victoria's lap and into the passenger seat.

Victoria caught her own eyes in the rear-view mirror. Rachel was right. The perma-purse was gone. She barely even recognized the face looking back at her. She looked happy. Surprisingly so. She didn't even mind that she was wearing two shades of smudged lipstick.

Blackwell Academy's main tower loomed behind her reflection in the mirror. She didn't so much feel she was leaving a part of herself here as burying it. Here lies the Queen. Time to move on.

She turned the ignition and gripped the steering wheel, staring forward at the road that led off campus and then, north, out of town.

She took a deep breath and nodded to herself.

"Anything!"

* * *

 **THE END**


End file.
